Member Info for adoubleuk

phnom, "I'm not getting into any personal feud and never will do." Never say never, but I try to avoid them! And don't want to get cross-threaded with a fellow menber of the Honorable International Society of Oilfield Trash. Me too, 40 years, worldwide, a particular liking of Africa. "10 days after spud and the price still hasn't budged is perplexing." Me too. It's not what usually happens. To me it signifies that any 'substantial' investors are treating this with kid gloves. " I know they said 35 days or so but most folk would take that as being the maximum and expect it to be anything up to 10 days less so this week and next will be crucial." Quite agree, if only in 'technical' wellsite terms. If by the end of the month there is no news whatsoever, my finger will be poised on the sell button again, even if it means shouldering a loss. "My gut feeling though is that the only way is up!" I prefer just to see what transpires!

phnom, OK, just to show there's no hard feelings, I'm replying yet again. The way you nonchalantly refered to 'remote location drilling' means you obviously know your way roung the oilpatch, so we're essentially on the same wavelength. I guess really all we can do is ride this out and see where it goes... Quits?

phnom, "Adoubleuk - I do think you're apparent rather sudden negativity is a bit overdone. 5p? " OK, maybe a bit of poetic licence at work there! But 5p, 10p, or 15p, it really makes no difference. Choose your own catastrophic figure. The thing here is that I've broken one of my own cardinal investing rules buying back in here, because in a nutshell I don't trust the CEO notr his commitment to investors since last year's suspension debacle. However I do trust the company's geological team, and am firmly convinced that the Agadem play in Niger could turn out to be a winner. So it wouldn't matter if it were Attilla the Hun drilling the wells, I'd still want part of the action. I was however hoping that the company might try to make the effort to somehow 'redeem' itself in the eyes of investors and polish up its somewhat tarnished image through becoming proactive news-wise through the vehicle of commencement of the long-awaited drilling, but already this is not the case. You ask " why would anyone still hold shares in a predominantly exploration company if they thought the downside could be so disastrous?" The answer is that some people are more prepared to accept risk than others might be. Why did Evel Kneivel try to jump the Grand Canyon? Except that's not a good comparison, because EK was guaranteed to make the TV news whether he succeeded or not. Pijoe pointed out the other day that if one looks at the SP now and what it was a year ago, there's not much evidence of the 7E stuff being 'value accretive for shareholders', and there's simply no arguing with that. So to my mind any hope for the SP making money for us currently lies in the drilling campaign. I consider this to be a very risky 'investment', but my eyes are wide open to that, which is the important thing. Imho, etc., etc.....

pijoe, "the cynic in me thinks the drilling was held back to cover this deal time slippage....but i am sure that is not the case..." You ol' cynic! No, sorry, you're a young(ish) cynic, I'm the old one. I'm not sure about your hypothesis. In fact I personally doubt it somehow. But I do find one thing rather curious, and that being there don't seem to have been any significant BoD changes of late, or at least none which we've heard about. And surely any such changes would require an RNS? Because let's face it, SAVP has changed since a year ago from being a small oil company with ideas about some exploratory drilling to a small oil company with acquisition (yet to be fully completed) of some ongoing production assets. So how come there doesn't appear to have been the establishment of two separate 'departments' withing the company, labelled 'exploration' and 'production'? Running separate bugets and with separate accounting? If this hasn't happened already, surely it will have to do so? But we haven't been informed of any planning in this respect. I see you haven't bought back in. And someone here asked why someone like myself has done so,despite the feeling that the SP might crater on the back of a bad result from drilling. The answer is simple. I've bought back in as a 'gamble' on a good result, because I believe the fundamentals based on the geological model to be no less sound than they were a year ago. But it's very true that any changes regarding the 7E RTO could completely squew-whiff the SP at any time, irrespective of what happens in Niger. But again, AIM O&G shares aren't for risk-averse fainthearts, anyway.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, I'm not some 'deramper', nor 'troll'. Just a professional oilman whose 'speciality' happens to be the 'sharp end' of oilwell drilling, who first bought into SAVP more than a year ago on the basis of their drilling prospectus, then found my shares suspended from trading for longer than I like to think about because the memory is painful, sold immediately trading reopened, then bought back in when imminent spud was announced. And although 'imminent' may not have been the exact word used in the RNS (it might have been 'soon', or 'shortly'), it's already become evident over the last few weeks that the CEO and his acolytes have a different perception of the passage of time than most other oil-people. Patience be damned. The drillbit's been spudded and is hopefully turning to the right and heading south. No more excuses. Time to quit sniffing the horse-tranquilisers and get down to business.

Phoebus, " I assume your being sarcastic" No, I am not. So far SAVP's track record as an 'oil company' has been to delay drilling blocks they've acquired in Niger two (or is it three?) times, perfomed fundraises, and (more recently) bought some bankrupt 'producing assets' in Nigeria. Without realising any positive cashflow (ie revenue) whatsoever to date. Cashflow has been negative, funded by the shareholders, in main. This well is now the acid test. Is the company capable of drilling what is essentially an extremely simple well in a relatively prolific play without c*cking things up or distracting us with further smoke and mirrors? The forthcoming weeks will be 'put up or shutup' time for this company. If it doesn't deliver on this, it won't get paid. Simple as that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3_1gP2Mg8M

phnom, " Where did you hear they had "raised the derrick" 20 days ago? And if they did that's pretty irrelevant given that the rig is about as remote as can be. You would know that they may well have been waiting on basic things like mud chemicals for instance and in such locations you could wait weeks." On the company website there are some photos headed 'Bushiya Wellsite' in the 'gallery', showing some stages of rigup. On shows the mast raised. They were brought to our attention about 20 days ago. I am personally no stranger to remote wellsites, including deep desert, jungle, etc. I've taken part in two projects where we were the only rig in the entire country, (Djibouti, Laos), and completely devoid of oilfield infrastructure of any sort, so am no stranger to 'remote location'. And the way to make such projects succeed is careful pre-planning, especially in regard to logistics. SAVP's drilling program was 'delayed' by about a year because the company decided to do so when share trading was suspended. Which was almost a year ago. And back then, we were led to believe that if that hadn't occured, everything was getting into place and was almost 'ready to go'. So there has been oodles of time to prepare. Plus despite 'remote location', Niger has considerable oilfield infrastructure (the Chinese didn't get their mud chemicals onsite two sacks at a time on the back of donkeys), so your argument just doesn't wash, I'm afraid. "The fact that they released an RNS confirming spud was good enough for me to believe that they will release news when they have it." The company will be receiving the Morning Report on a daily basis, like any normal outfit. Or at least, one hopes so. Communications via satellite link aren't exactly science fiction, nor limited to enabling the Company Man to watch CNN on the TV in his sleeper. So they receive 'news' every day. It's up to each oil company to decide what merits an RNS and what doesn't, though. I can't help thinking of two completely opposing views on this: SOU and HUR. The former released an RNS just about every time the Mud Engineer went for a coffee-break, whereas HUR 'drilling newsflow' is tighter than a duck's fundament, only telling shareholders the bare minimum. That includes things which most people would consider almost obligatory, such as rig mobilisation, spud, and reaching TD (total depth). SAVP never even bothered to tell us when the rig was mobilised, so I don't expect them to tell us much else, either. We'll probably get lots of incomprehensible financial and legal ballyhoo about Nigeria instead, none of which being the reason a large number of people put their cash into this company to start with. My prediction: if in 40 day's time the company issues an RNS saying they've just drilled a duster, the shareprice will probably go to about fivepence.

Zengas, "Chinese were making the eocence discoveries in circa 24 days." You have dared state an opinion I was scared to voice in case I were accused of 'deramping', being a troll, or something similar. I've heard of adding 'contingency', indeed it's a necessity, but 35 - 40 days is waay too long to poke a poxy 7000ft straight hole in the ground and log it, especially as there are no 'challenging' formations to be encountered. We're in 2018, for goodness' sake, not 1978. Already 20 days from raising the derrick to spud is snail-pace stuff, but local logistical constraints may have dictated that, so it would be unfair to dwell on it. I'm reading the RNS slightly differently, now. They'll drill and log the well, then analyse the results, and then give us a binary RNS saying whether the thing's been a 'success' or not. Nothing more than that. This company isn't renowned for being news-friendly in regard to their investors, anyway. I guess Agadem might as well start his 'tick tock' clock again. With the bell set to ring in a bit over five weeks' time.

From the wording of the RNS, I don't think we're likely to see any interim progress reports regarding the drilling.

Delboi, Spud on a Friday in a muslim country? Hope not. Brings bad luck. Mind you, they've only two days and that's the end of the month...

Phoebus, " When are you actually going to spud after keeping us in suspense for so very long?" I very much hope someone will ask this straight-up. The photos on the website showed they'd got the mast up. Sure, plenty of other things to do as well. But they don't seem to be in any hurry to start. Ten days from raising the derrick to spud is plenty long enough.

Chrishutch, "Happy waiting at present" Yup, not much choice for now. But an open message to the guys on the wellsite. "C'mon, guys, pull yer finger out. All that needs doing is take on water, do rig acceptance testing, ensure you've got all required mud chemical stocks in, build 'spud mud', and start 'turning to the right'. Not much to ask. Time is money, you know."

Andyforster, "The further 10% of Colter option runs out in two weeks." You've suddenly reminded me of something I meant to post here quite a while back, when the SP started slipping. I don't believe anyone has mentioned it. The business section of the Sunday Times ran an article about Reabold Resources, which has a 32.9% interest in Corallian Energy, which itself has a 50% interest in Colter, looks likely (maybe?) to announce a placing to the tune of �12 million soon, although no RNS has yet been issued by RBD to that effect. I wonder if that may explain (for whatever arcane reason) the SP moves we've subsequently seen? Just a thought. Might be completely wrong.

pijoe, Point taken wrt the 7E bondholders. They might represent a 'threat' to we PIs at this juncture. "yep great..on that cusp for a rather long while..." Point taken again. And being ultra-cynical, it's a matter of faith that those photos actually have been taken where the company says they were! However if everything's above board (again quite a bit of faith required: this IS SAVP, after all), the crews are in place, the rig erected, and water taken on in the pits (question mark: I see no tankers), it looks like there's no reason why the company shouldn't be ready to drill the first foot of hole in its entire existance. This time. There had better be an RNS announcing spud within the next ten days. If there isn't, I'm personally going to start getting ultra-cynical again. ASSUMING all goes well, it will be interesting to see how the company manages newsflow regarding the drilling. Are they going to keep eveything tightly under wraps, Hurricane - style, or go the route Sound followed eighteen months ago, with an RNS every time the Driller took a smoke-break? Personally (and unusually) I hope it's the latter. Kick some excitement and volatility into this share! I only bought back in to trade the b***er anyway...

Mountiede, The photo you're looking at is not on the wellsite and the workforce isn't Chinese! Idiot. That's the seismic crew. Already it's quite a surprise to see they've been issued with coveralls. Seismic crew line-layers are recruited locally wherever the 'shooting' is taking place. It's unskilled work. Also, though, those people aren't fools: why wear a hardhat when working in the open desert and the only 'overhead hazard' is the sun?

Oh yeah, I forgot to explain my header! I bought back in just about an hour ago, and by the time it showed up in my online portfolio, it was already showing a loss! Still, that's what comes of trading on a Monday morning. I ought to know better...

Well, I've bought back in here again, on the basis of today's RNS. Judging by the photos on the company site, rigup is underway, and should in fact by now be complete. So to follow will be rig acceptance testing (which shouldn't take more than a few days, if that, and then spud. Which should be the basis of the next RNS. From which point, the SP should hopefully become news-driven from the drilling front, so fingers crossed. I just hope nobody plays silly b***ers and launches some squiffy curve-ball regarding the 7E activity 'twixt spud and TD...

I've just recently added to my holding here, and went to the 'trades' section of the site to check that the transaction was executed. And I noticed something which interests me. This site (LSE) only reports the SP as that made on the most recent 'A' (automatic) trade. Without being 100% sure of this, my understanding of an 'A trade' is that it's essentially an algorithmic computer-based 'trade' as beloved of MM's, where shares do not actually change hands or 'ownership', but a tool to bolster daily trading volume figures, create some volatility, and thus induce increased investor interest in the share. Volatility being the MM's greatest friend, of course: they make money whichever way the SP moves. The important thing is attracting general awareness of the share, so that trading volume picks up. Currently on UOG, there seems to be a marked lack of 'A' trades. They're nearly all 'O' (ordinary) trades. People like myself, either buying some shares to increase their holding, or otherwise selling, because the share doesn't seem to be doing much at present, so discourages active private trading. From this, I can only conclude that UOG doesn't seem to be figuring much on the MM's 'radar' at the moment. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, I'm not sure. But I reckon for this trend to change, it'll require some significant RNS or other news to get things moving. I'm personally quite prepared to sit and wait: such an RNS is bound to happen sometime, imho, and it's better to be patient than to expect some sort of hype which might be purely driven by a desire to see the SP on the move. I reckon my cash is better off here than languishing in the bank, maybe earning 0.2% interest pa if I'm lucky!

tidd, "I personally don�t think an offtake or two are going to be as distant as some are expecting. One customer and a clear route to market will see this multiply." I'd be wary about this. That 'one customer' has to be (imo) found, and now a 'clear route to market' (although there might be a number of options) remains no longer very 'clear'.

saturnpeer, I don't think you really need to apologise for anything. Sure, your earlier post was rather 'shot from the hip', but it was an honest expression of your feelings, and I agree with the sentiment expressed. Tonyhadlee's message was one of the most disgusting things it's been my misfortune to read on a shareholders' chatboard ever. Sure, anyone 'dabbling' in AIM shares is well-advised to be armed with a serious arsenal of scepticism, doubt, and caution, maybe especially when coming to O & G ventures on the African continent. But his comments strike me as downright racist and probably libellous as well, and I've hit the 'report' button for that, and hope others might do so as well. 'Trolls', 'derampers', and other such nay-sayers are part and parcel of BB's like this (and in some ways, part of the fun!). But from what slimy depths 'Tonyhadlee' has crawled out from baffles the imagination. As does what exacly he thinks he might gain from posting such stuff.