Member Info for aligator

With the greatest respect to the citizens of T&T, the attitude of its government to the development of critical natural resources for their benefit frankly stinks and tags T&T with a third world mentality towards such activities.

dunder, The answer I received (to my email) from the company was that Coho production has been delayed because the Ministry of Energy "...has to wait for a certification agent to sign off on the facility and pipeline". This would suggest that the Ministry does not employee such agents but appoints third party individuals on an as and when basis, which is incredible to say the least.
It also said that the target is to bring Cacscadura on stream in Q1 2023 and that the company is trying to ensure that the certification process for this field is undertaken and documented while the facilities are being built (i.e. trying to avoid the pitfalls which Coho has suffered).
The company added that it has a good working relationship with the Ministry of Energy (I would be very concerned to see what would happen if it didn't!) but advised that there are many documentation processes that have to be undertaken and closing with the comment that it has learned from the Coho process and will endeavour to work through the requirements while it is building the Cascadura facilities.

Just to clarify for those who may not be aware, Coho is essentially capable and ready to produce but has been delayed purely because the Ministry of Energy has yet to produce a certification agent to sign off on the facility and pipeline. In short, for whatever reasons, the Ministry of Energy continues to drag its feet in approving this project. Frankly, it is impossible to understand the thinking and attitude of the T&T government in developing such valuable assets for the benefit of its citizens. If I was more suspicious, I would begin to think that appropriate brown paper bags have been lost in transit.....

MasksNN, thanks for the reminder of what is in the cupboard. If the company is able to rectify both the Blythe/Elgood salinity and southwark drilling fluid issues, the sp should recover lost ground and, hopefully, beyond. As dunder and many other posters comment, those of us LTHs really don't have many options but to sit tight and see what transpires.

scored, your purchases are heartening and I wish you all he best. The silence from the company is deafening but sailor's very useful technical updates give some comfort that things continue to happen behind the scenes. How many times have we endured these tanking scenarios - they have turned my grey hair white!

Sad to be able to say that my prediction at the time of the RNS was correct, that is that the sp would, in the absence of any positive notifications, drift back to 23p.
I have never been invested in a company which has created so much frustration, and indeed anger, from simply observing its performance over the past few years.
Further, as I have said before, we may have a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, gas pipelines to Europe reopened and crashing gas prices before we know if both the salinity and drilling fluids issues have been resolved. We can only look in envy at other gas producers who have simply been coining it over the past 6 months. And through all this, we have a BoD and management team who simply deny any responsibility but find it appropriate to award themselves options time and time again.

Has anyone messaged the company to ask for a clear and concise explanation as to why is going on?

deniscaff, Agree with you. However, sadly, it is not just the imbalance of the LOG and other II holdings. It is the result of string of operational problem going back several years, which has spooked the market. As soon as the salinity and lost drilling fluids issues were announced, I predicted that the sp would fall back to the previous low - 23p - just a couple of months ago. Sadly, I am just 2p shy of that.
What is irritating to say the least is that the management team accept no responsibility and, indeed, continue to award themselves options for such negative performance.
I can see the Ukraine war being over and Russia forced to open its pipelines again, resulting in crashing gas prices, before this management team have Blythe, Elgood and Southwark in full production.

scored, It will be interesting to see what you receive by way of response and when you receive it. The BoD and executive have consistently produced a list of excuses regarding the never ending list of operational problems, with no hint that any of the issues were the result of their mismanagement, lack of planning, etc. Indeed, as you will know they have awarded themselves a slew of options in the process. If fingers have been pointed, it has been at sub-contractors. We will never know the full facts but I retain my own negative views of those in charge.

scored, Do you mind sharing what you raised in your email?

Mole, Fair points. However, we may never know the real facts. That said, and despite achieving first gas (itself almost a year behind schedule), the company's performance over the past few years has been just woeful. Put it down to coincidence, hard luck or management performance (who knows?), the list of problems has simply gone on and on and has spooked the market. Every time there is an RNS, I steady myself for a drop in the sp.
Let me stress, I remain a long term holder (since listing) and have a sizeable holding, so share the desire of all other shareholders for the company to be successful but have real concerns about the board and executive performance.

Mole, I think the point various posters are making is that the company is required to report anything which impacts the value of the company. I know this is subjective because the issue of materiality comes into play but, when your share price slips 40% on such news, you know it was indeed material. Dunderhead make a a good point about the time of knowledge of both issues and I have to agree with him that the salinity problem appears to have been known weeks, if not months, before the eventual RNS. If correct, this is not only shameful but is illegal.

Pipedragger, what do you base your statement that IOG is making serious money on? At the moment, we have no idea if gas is being produced from Blythe and/or Elgood and no idea if the southwark development well drilling is continuing of been stopped.

phila6se, As I see it, IOG's greatest threat now is the possibility of Russian gas supply to Europe being recommenced as this will bring the price down rapidly - with all the negative cash flow impact this would have on IOG. Sadly, the company has managed to achieve very little during this period of sky-high prices - considerable delays in first gas on Blythe/Elgood, problems at Bacton and now the salinity issue and the drilling fluid issue. I can't think of a better example of the perfect storm.

phila6se, if you have been involved here for 2 years then you cannot have missed the literal cascade of bad news after bad news, which has actually been going since the LOG intervention. Simply put, the market does not trust the BoD and that is the reason the sp has dropped approaching 40% since the last RNS containing details of the Blythe/Elgood salinity issue and the Southwark drill fluid loss.

evidencing the market's frustration with the continuing list of problems encountered by the company over the past 3 years. My questions for the technical people on this board:
1. Would salinity levels have been pre-assessed prior to, and monitored during, the drilling of the Blythe/Elgood production wells? If so, and higher salt water levels experienced, why wasn't this dealt with at the time? Is it just an issue of installing desalination equipment or more expansive than that? Was the high salinity issue present at first production or has it occurred since?
2. Similarly, I am presuming that the geology of the production well on Southwark would have been researched as part of the field development plan and during the production well drilling? Would it have been feasible to identify potential problems areas/depths prior to spudding the production well and/or monitor the well bore during drilling?

Wolster, I would very much hope that any resolution to the salinity and fluid loss issues, which caused a near 40% drop in the sp, is reported as soon as practicable. One can only hope that, if Blythe is the salinity issue, it can be shut in and rectified and the Elgood taps turned on full.

No company will respond to anything put on any of these boards. It would be suicidal if you think about it.
This is just a situation of wait and wait until a formal update is given. However, as dunderhead notes, it will be galling if the current sp rise is subsequently accompanied by a positive RNS.

happysparrow, My view is yes. Personally, I think both Rowley and young have lost the plot. Young is clearly a legend in his own mind and, frankly, Rowley is a joke. The citizens of T&T are being led up the path by these two - production has been dwindling for years and, while gas prices are now at all time highs, they both fiddle while Rome burns. Sometimes, you have to wonder about the agendas of such people.

It would be valuable to have a professional opinion on the salinity issue from anyone on this board with downhole production experience. Are we looking at a binary issue - broken/not broken - or are there variables at play in terms of why and how? If the latter, are remedial procedures feasible and is major downtime a given or can repair be undertaken while the system is live?
Similarly, if anyone is able to comment on the drilling fluid loss issues from the same perspective, that would also assist those of us with non-technical backgrounds.