Member Info for aligator

I am simply mystified by the abject positivity of investors in this company who have, over the past 2 years or so, watched it stumble and bumble from one crisis to another benefitting not one iota from a BoD and executive team who are clearly out of their depth. LB's interview was a disaster of epic proportions and the problems with the rig itself and issues with the well structure merely add to the sheer incompetence of this hapless bunch.

Yes, I can appreciate investors trying to think positively about a bad situation but what is occurring here is a catastrophe. I can see a fund raise at 2-2.5p and the sp testing 1p in the not too distant future.

What a complete shambles this project has been from day 1. Clearly the company is going to have to raise more funding which will probably be done sub 3p and even then, based on past performance and achievements, we cannot assume that such funding will result in successful drilling elsewhere.

Time for Blaisse to move on.

Highland matt, Sadly, I feel that the disappointing performance of the sp is the legacy of PB"s countless optimistic statements about walls of cash and ginormous reservoirs of gas with additional pockets of oil, all of which would be developed or reflected in the balance sheet within 2-3 years. It simply has not happened and although I agree with you that 51p is nuts I am afraid that we are going have to live with this underperformance until other fields are brought on stream so 2-3 years is possibly the time frame to be considered before the market cap of the company reflects its real worth.

Legalwolf, No smoke without fire is specifically relevant to AIM, where I have experienced exactly the same trading activity with other companies. The reality is that it is almost impossible to contain information within, for example, a drill site and, far too often, loose lips provide excellent trading opportunities for those in possession of such inside knowledge. I am sure that, if you were to check the phones of the senior people on site you would find calls to London over the past few days. The trouble is that the LSE is totally useless in policing such situations, irregardless of whether they have been provided with clear evidence of wrongdoing or not. At the bottom line, the entire market and its oversight is corrupt.

This is, to my knowledge, the third technical problem encountered in a relatively short time frame. Of course, like most situations, it is capable of being remedied but it does pose the questions as to the level of pre-purchase technical evaluation and how intensive it was and/or the operating experience of those controlling this piece of equipment. The word hapless springs to mind.

rj, thank you so much for your informed comment. it is refreshing to know that arrogant ****h*les like you still abound on this planet.

Good news but would appreciate a downhole engineer's thoughts and views on the RNS. Specifically, the announcement initially states "Whilst drilling into Basement, a fracture zone was encountered...", as if this was not expected. However, it then states that "This fractured Basement was anticipated, and was one of the Company's primary reservoir targets" (which inevitably sows a seed of doubt as to whether it was anticipated or not). Is this, once again, just poor wording by the company or is such a geological flaw a potential problem, not least because they lost drilling fluid when entering the zone?

Lack of movement in sp over the past few months suggests that the market has already taken into account the value of the current well which would also suggest that next week's announcement of earnings, albeit significantly more than last year, will have little impact on the market cap and that it will only be the successful drilling of new production wells which will spur the sp upwards. That said, as has been commented before, these are strange markets these days and my logic could be completely wrong. I hope so!

TSX closing price was CAD1.06 which is ca 63p. This suggests that the sp will rise further (60.80p). Does anyone have background to the increase?

RJ, I am a realist and have been around these markets for long enough to be able to develop justifiable pessimism from historical performance and the contents of wooly RNS's. You can interpret what you like from the events of the last couple of years and/or formal announcements, but the fact is that there has really been very little to cheer about (even the positive news of the rig acquisition, installation on-site and commencement of drilling have been overshadowed by updates about problems with the rig itself!) and the market is clearly reflecting this in the sp.

To the other eternal optimists on this board I sincerely wish you luck. However, I just don't see this being the case.

I think most, if not all, people on this board would acknowledge that we, as mere shareholders, are completely in the dark as to what is happening down in Tanzania. Yes, we can post all manner of thoughts and views but the reality is that we don't really have a clue as to progress or lack of, save for the woolly RNS issued a few days ago, from which I personally derived little comfort.

This share touched 28 p just over a couple of years ago and is now trading at around 18% of that figure. Yes, there was a necessary transfer of power within the BoD at the beginning of the year but, let's be honest with ourselves, events since then have done very little to calm most investors nerves and recent dill rig issues and blurry RNSs have done little to give hope.

To the RogerJolly's of this board I sincerely hope your blind optimism and faith is rewarded in due course as it will allow me to exit at cost, maybe even show a little profit. However, to those who are the realists and pessimists, I think we all have negative vibes as to what the future holds.

Just been able to read the RNS. Frankly, it does not read well, both in terms of physical progress and discovery or in terms of grammatical preciseness. Reading between the lines, I get the impression that gas shows and pressures are less than anticipated but the company is trying to put on a positive face. Not surprisingly, the sp is reflecting the ongoing technical problem and the relative lack of achievement.

This company has failed to impress over the past two years or so and I just get the further impression that the BoD, led by LB, is out of its depth (excuse the drilling pun). I am a shareholder but now in the red and not convinced that what lies beyond the foreseeable horizon is positive. Fortunately I don't have a huge amount at risk here so could ride the turbulence to see where things go. That said, this is now a binary scenario for the company - it either discovers commercial quantities of helium and survives or fails to do so and sinks.

It is evident that analysts and the market are not convinced by the recommencement of drilling RNS. This could be down to the history of this company over the last 12 months if not earlier, but undoubtedly also reflects the requirement to see target depth reached with positive news.

This is as binary as it gets now. Another drilling problem will seriously dent the company's prospects as will a declaration that there is either no gas or insufficient gas to be commercial.

This is not me trying to ramp or deramp but, rather, to inject some realistic thinking into the equation.

Let's be realistic here. This company has never reflected veracity over the past couple of years in terms of the content and timing of its RNS's. Clearly, if the rig problem is a component issue then someone did not do their job inspecting the asset and signing it off as fit for purpose. If it was operator error then we have more evidence of the haplessness of the people in charge.

I have said before that installing a relatively inexperienced geologist as CEO of a gas exploration company was fraught with challenges and I continue to feel this way. We now have a share price which has returned to the price it was 3 years ago, having reached 28p and averaged 10p in the interim.

Frequently, this statement, which in itself could mean anything, evidences operator error versus something wrong with a component. does anyone know the prices details of the component or the failure?

Announcements that a director has sold shares in his company never fit well with the market, irrespective of quantum. This company is now considerably undervalued and, with £4m per month from Cascadura, will be able to fund further infill and development wells without having to raise equity. I would think that this is due a rerate shortly.

Why is that, almost every time PB makes a presentation or hosts a q&a session, the share price slides, irrespective of whether the information is positive is negative? Perhaps it is because the market is simply not impressed by PB's style (he looked like a mad professor in today's event) and is tired of his perpetual "good news in the future" stance. Yes, $4m net per month from production is a step change for an exploration company but it is not exactly the "wall of cash" PB has promulgated time and time again over the years.

Quite frankly, the company needs to seriously consider its public relations approach as its current model is simply not working. I don't know if it is getting advice from a professional PR firm but something needs to happen to bring about a rerate of the sp.

Tick tock. 8 days left to announce spud. 50p says we get an RNS next week saying the end September deadline will be missed for whatever reason.

Given the wide array of comments on this board, I get the impression that, at the bottom line, people don't really know what is happening with the company. Initial production from Cascadura was supposed to rerate the sp but achieved nothing and it has floated in the 60s since then. Even the Investor Presentation on 13 Sept and production update on 18 Sept failed to impress.

Anyone got thoughts on why this is the case and what the near term future holds?

The assumptions being posted here are that, once the well is spudded (just 10 days remaining in September...), drilling will be a doddle and HE1 will find gas. Just a reminder that this is an industry where the tendency is if it can go wrong it will go wrong.

As a shareholder, I am acutely aware of this and what bothers me with HE1 is that everything it does is run to the wire in terms of timetable and reporting.

Further, finding gas in this well is not a given and what bothers me is that the company has never mentioned a plan B or plan C should that be the case. Yes, the share placing has raised more funds but how long would this sustain the company if the Rukwa well is a failure?