Member Info for Alaric

noted and fair comment BS.

haven't checked QF and have pro tem lost track of the numbers but if they're already showing MW as a near 10% holder, sounds possibly right. so ST's controlled interests should go, as i understand it, once MW complete the remaining acquisition. this is expected shortly.

well BS i guess we await some further detail on the Sun Trust situation, once Midwestern has completed the asset transfer but, as others have posted, it is already possible to draw some considerable positives from what we know for certain, no matter how some spin it in the post- truth world they appear to inhabit. your suggestion 'in fact' that some are deeply suspicious of this is, i suggest, less to do with fact and more with emotion ie post-truth (and forensically you have to do a bit better than citing frustrated and friends on this). so to recap on what we know so far: 1) we are losing a bad actor (ST) for a good one (MW) at no cost to us; 2) whatever value attaches to the assets transferred to ST, it is reasonable to conclude that Jite is happy to swap them for a serious stake in San Leon, thereby increasing his exposure to OML18 and thus further reasonable to assume he sees this as having greater potential than the current quoted share price; 3) that the looming potential problem for us of ST being a forced or at least hostile seller of their significant holding in San Leon is resolved at a stroke and, as if it needed repeating; and 4) implicit acknowledgement by ST that they legally owned a holding in San Leon which they have now sold/ agreed to sell for value, thereby eradicating any possible future basis for claim against San Leon (don't ask me how they were ever going to talk their way out of the fact that they had already sold a stake for profit). on the plus side, you seem much clearer now about Mart's situation (and just imagine if they had been selling their interest in OML18 today at $85 oil?); you also now seem much clearer about it being a good thing for San Leon to have gone ahead with its Nigerian venture; and i hope we've now cleared up your conundrums on the $55 hedge and on the status of OML18 as a world class producing field not a 'marginal' one, as you previously imagined. so all in all, if not yet pellucid, you are now, i believe, seeing things much more clearly. so there you have it - some forensic analysis based on facts we know is so much better for clarity than the other stuff.

yeah BS, wouldn't it just be dandy if everyone could go round being nice to everyone all the time, so that the squirrels could go about their business writing the first bit of emotional garbage and fake news ( you call this 'real information') that enters their tiny little heads every morning, without any intellectual challenge on this board. the misguided attempts over time to frame debate largely by appeals to emotion, untroubled by connection to fact or financial knowledge, have indeed been most cruelly (and publically) exposed by bluerill (you and friend frus call this 'obnoxious'). but you fail to realise that repeated unsubstantiated assertion of your chosen talking points ( eg.Sun Trust's case must be good mustn't it?) to which factual rebuttals are just ignored (eg. well how did Sun Trust get all those San Leon shares then?) will never replace hard forensic analysis. and of course the truth always hurts.

fwiw (and i'm not a great tom winnifrith fan but equally don't think he has historically been a big san leon fan) here is latest from him. on the plus side we do seem now to be attracting belatedly a surge in positive comment from brokers and commentators, which cant be a bad thing.

'San Leon Energy (SLE) has announced that Midwestern Oil & Gas Limited has notified it that Midwestern has entered into a binding agreement with SunTrust Oil Company Nigeria Limited to acquire SunTrust's equity interest in San Leon, that is 14.29% of the company.

Indeed a 9.44% stake has already been transferred, the rest of the transfer will take place over the coming weeks. MidWestern is already a business partner via Midwestern Leon Petroleum Limited.

If the name rings a bell it is because earlier this year the two were in talks about a wider transaction, possibly a full takeover of San Leon. Okay the two did not make it all the way to a home run but it is clear that they are happy friends at second base. You never know, with San Leon now operationally and financially secure things may well progress further at some stage. This is, therefore, a positive development.

At 26.7p-27p the stance is very much buy at up to 35p with a maintained, derived from fundamentals alone, 50p price target.'

good discussion guys, thanks. in fairness to PC01, i suspect he was talking more about the sheer financial muscle Tosca has placed behind us, most particularly on the Nigerian deal but also at the end on Avobone, without which....well best not go there. your point is well made, though, bluerill. unpopular as it may be with many here, i share your view of Oisin, who is clearly smart, has a certain gravitas and charm, and without whom we would not have gotten the Nigerian deal. more importantly for us he has clearly enjoyed Martin Hughes' support through thick and thin (well more thin so far let's face it!) and he evidently has a cracking relationship with Jite Okoloko, which continues to bode well for the future.

i have posted on this before but good to remind the scale of ambition of our partner here.

Speaking at the licensing ceremony, Notore Group Managing Director, Onajite Okoloko, said their Free Zone Developer status will bring “great opportunities” for Nigerian and international investors.

“They will be impressed by over 559 hectares of land, a dedicated gas pipeline, 50MW of embedded power plant, more than 2km of shoreline and 7500 sq m of jetty dock. Investments in the Free Zone will be free of corporate, income and associated import taxes.” Okoloko went on to say that Notore’s free zone development will help to diversify Nigeria’s economy, supporting the country to become Africa’s leading petrochemicals hub.

Prior to the Free zone award, Notore had entered into a strategic gas sales agreement with Eroton Exploration & Production (Eroton) which holds over 4.0 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas located 14 kilometers away from the Notore site. It is anticipated that access to significant gas from Eroton, alongside the Notore Free Zone with its port and logistics infrastructure, will create the right environment for the petrochemical development.

indeed bluerill and worth pointing out again here, a much larger public company and one that may no longer be quoted on AIM but maybe the 250, with concomitant advantages of investment market exposure and borrowing ability in London (a huge advantage to a local Nigerian oil play) . with just a little imagination, it is possible to see that, with one bound, we together with midwestern/eroton could be free of the present RBL spending constraints on dividend policy and investment in OML18 workovers and new wells. add to that the new secure pipeline and this thing starts to look pretty exciting.... or if people prefer they can continue to look in the rearview mirror. i know which way i'm looking with bonny light in the mid 80s and Jite's plans for his enterprise zone and dedicated gas line.

....just to clarify for some of our readership (you know who you are), 'the put option' means it's eroton's choice to utilise or not. obviously given today's oil price, they haven't needed to exercise this option.

i have clarified this before but here it is again "During January 2018, Eroton put in place a new hedge covering its RBL borrowing base. The hedge is a put option at a price of $50/bbl for 10,170 bopd until 30 June 2019." such a hedge arrangement in the present market climate is not particularly expensive, considerably less than $5 a barrel for sure (bonny light about $85 a barrel this morning).
NNPC is the state partner in all Nigerian oil assets. At OML18 they hold 55% of the field. 'According to the Nigerian constitution, all minerals, gas, and oil the country possesses are legally the property of the Nigerian federal government. As such, the oil corporations operating in Nigeria appropriate portions of their revenue to the government, which accrues nearly 60% of the revenue generated by the oil industry in this manner. The revenue gained by the NNPC accounts for 76% of federal government revenue and 40% of the entire country's GDP. As of 2000, oil and gas exports account for 98% of Nigerian export earnings' [source:Wiki]

boy I'll say this for you - you've taken some hits over the last few days. if this was under queensberry, i think the ref would have stopped the fight by now. trouble is though think you're now taking them to the head. the sun trust game is over - they've agreed to sell their holding in san leon (did u miss that bit?). this is the $50m + holding that they had kind of forgotten to mention in their leaked court docs. u must remember that bit? well that's why i was asking you to explain, because it was kind of the elephant in the court room but u wouldn't or (maybe couldn't?) answer. registering yet? not too sure eh?- the lights might be on (just) but maybe nobody in. and to think i was going to report bluerill to the RSPCA this morning for cruelty to squirrels...

http://www.sanleonenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/2018/october/1/midwestern-oil-gas-company-limited-becomes-significant-shareholder.aspx

excellent post bluerill. in all likelihood, we will get a fuller announcement on the status of Sun Trust's case withdrawal, once all the shares have been transferred in a few weeks. even the dumbest squirrel will realise that a) by agreeing to sell its shares in San Leon, Sun Trust implicitly acknowledges (and indeed warrants to a 3rd party) that it was the legal owner of the shares b) this removes the central (wobbly) plank of Sun Trust's argument that somehow the shares were not legally transferred to it or somehow they were missold (take a bow ST lawyer, Fidelio, but i never got your reasoning!!) and c) without any shares in San Leon it is difficult to see what locus standi ST would have in any proceedings. end of saga - shame we have had some fun with it.

...and Sun Trust taken out. all in one fell swoop, as the bard would have put it. absolutely brilliant! we get an even closer relationship with our partner Jite Okoloko (stepping stone to merger?) AND get a friendly shareholder in place of a clearly hostile one AND get rid of the whole Sun Trust nonsense - what's not to like?

on the subject of factual substantiation, BlackSwan, anytime you want to provide a few facts to substantiate your 'Eroton in financial trouble' allegation - please feel free. failing this, may we take your non-response on that as an unconditional withdrawal of your statement?

...just for once BlackSwan, why don't you (and any other squirrels who may be listening) focus on the factual argument and not on my personality? good, bad or indifferent - it has nothing whatever to do with the thing. and when i refer to factual argument, i mean things which are capable of being supported by reasoned evidence and logical argument. some other remarkable bits of misinfo from your recent diatribes: OML18 - a 'marginal field' really? how so? NNPC are pretty uptodate with the IOCs and and are uptodate with current capex on locals (so just arrears to be made good now) and Shell has been reducing exposure to oil globally. btw the $55 put option hedge you referred to earlier (obviously not used) is a complete irrelevance and almost certainly taken only on a proportion of production and to satisfy Eroton's RBL conditions as a safety net for the DSRA. ok i can't prove that last bit but it's a heck of a sight better guess than your assinine 'what were they thinking of taking out a $55 hedge, when the whole world can see that oil is going up?' on that subject, bonny light is trading at over $83 this morning, so given we did this deal when it was about $26 (btw one of the reasons the canadians were going bust), i for one say cheers to Oisin for that and remain happy that i'm long in a presently much undervalued stock, which is asset long in one of the most expensive oils on our planet. so why are you still here?

usual prolix, old hat and discursive waffle from you BlackSwan, which (why am i not surprised?) doesn't actually address my objection to your post that Eroton are 'in financial trouble'. they are most evidently not (for the reasons i gave below) and you are unable to substantiate your unconditional statement. publishing rumours in writing on a public forum of a company's financial ill health, if not justifiable as fair comment, are libellous and almost certainly criminal.

...for DRS read DSRA (debt service reserve). put it down to dyslexia or ive been watching too much formula 1!

BlackSwan, i knew there was something i hadn't checked off with you. 'Eroton is in financial trouble' - where the heck did u get that from? our loan notes and interest so far ($77.3m) have been paid on time +/- a few days and we have the next one due in a few days now. we've heard Eroton have done workovers on 5 wells, 3 LACT units are now operational with next 2 expected early October, a drilling rig arrives in October for first new well expecting to spud early November and planning continues on Buguma field as well as on the dedicated export system for OML 18 (expected online next year). it seems clear to me they are still able to utilise their DRS to fund all this and that, if they were 'in financial trouble' as you suggest or in breach of their loan covenants, their banks would not permit. so, with respect, i do think bald statements from you like this have to be substantiated or withdrawn.

.. very struck by your thinking around the ST inflexion point of 45p, PC01, which triggers a number of interesting potential consequences, all which i would say are pretty positive for us. and agree with your conclusion that, like it or not, (and as you can see, some round here won't!) the share price will have to start rising.
as for your thinking BS, as i've mentioned to you before, i'm just glad you're not running SLE. the quicker Eroton meets its debt service reserve through enhanced income on OML18 the quicker this whole financial model starts working properly: that will be even quicker if NNPC pay up but is ultimately NOT CRITICAL. as for your wonderful statement ' things can't get much more difficult and we currently have Barryroe' - well schoolboys couldn't want for a better example of oxymoron. (ok it's not strictly an oxymoron more a contradiction in terms but same difference- ha that might be though)