Member Info for Arfur_Uggins

It's been a disaster for any long-term holder.
Will it take off again? Do you know, I think there's a fighting it will next year.

Hmmmm. I don't think Harbour Energy should try to run before it can walk.

Doing a reverse takeover of a bust company like Premier Oil is one thing. But Rockhopper Exploration is a cash poor but asset rich entity (potentially extremely asset rich company), with no debt and the possibility of some relief money from any OM payout (here's hoping).

If there were any suggestions of Rockhopper's being bought out, the share price wouldn't be 6p now. Besides, the Board would be diving into shares.

Trying to buy Rockhopper on the cheap is assuming the owners and governors are idiots. And they're not. They might be desperate to see Sea Lion start producing, but they are not desperate per se.

For those who like a visual analysis of the oil price, I have provided a link below. It supports my claim about the oil price having bottomed this year and that it is now in a cyclical bull market.

https://elliottwave-forecast.com/stock-market/eni-bp-locate-energy-sector-bottom/

Of particular interest is the claim this article makes about big oilers having not bottomed yet. It looks like the BP's of this world will have a good 2021 but will then complete their 5th waves down to a bottom. I guess this 5th wave will coincide with the big correction expected in the DJI (the 4th wave correction?) starting around 1st quarter 2022 (no doubt chartists can tell us more). The years 2022 to 2024 look terrible for most world stock markets.

The important thing for Rockhopper is that oil itself is on the up. If they time things nicely, they will be selling oil from Sea Lion for a good few years at a very high price - a nice reward for the owners for all the years of misery. I just hope that Harbour Energy know all this and do the biz.

Whenever journalists talk about electric vehicles, they are always asking questions about whether the power grid can cope with the capacity or whether enough electricity can be stored by batteries or whatever. They never ask how all that electricity is going to be produced - maybe they are forbidden to ask!

The amount of leccy needed for all those millions of cars sure ain't coming via wind power or sunlight....no siree!

So all that unwanted petrol should get remixed carefully with more oil and burnt to make the leccy.

I recommend the oil they use is Rockhopper's Sea lion oil. (Coming to a service station near you - very soon!)

Ovets,
Absolutely. You're referring to the 'Slippery Slope'.

Auson,

We will find out soon enough.

I have never met Tony Durrant, but I'm sure he is a perfectly decent man whose only crime (if crime it be) was to exhibit the herd behaviour that 99% of us do.

He helped get his company involved in a Falkland's project that it couldn't afford, at totally the wrong time, which resulted in it, and it's junior partner, suffering the situation they find themselves in today. Premier Oil invested at the top of the market, bought 'cheap' assets that larger Oilers were shedding as the oil price declined, and was left trying to sell a commodity that registered -$40 in the futures market at one moment. The subsequent debt debacle and list of excuses to interested parties makes a CEO look like a blue-suede-shoe feather merchant who would be more at home running a bottom-end boutique along the Tottenham Court Road!
It is to be hoped that the new company, Harbour Energy, do not continue the bad habits of the old. If they manage to get Sea Lion underway, develop additional fields and be left sitting on a friendly, productive little oil province in a decade's time, that would show us that they really did know how to do it all along.

And, if they are really cute, they will then sell the whole lot to some other mug like old Premier Oil, sit on the cash, pay off their debts, and wait for the cycle to repeat. Only, next time, they will be the ones flush with money and be the controllers of their own destiny.

Cassandra Rules, OK?

Auson,

I'm not sure of the percentage energy usage by sector, but spookily, 17% for aviation seems sensible enough in normal times.

I've seen the BP figures quoted a few times by different financial journalists, but the link below mentions it on point number 7.

https://moneyweek.com/520575/20-predictions-for-the-2020s

Ovets,
according to BP, over 80% of the world's energy comes from burning hydrocarbons, and about 33% of that comes from burning oil.

Nota lotta people know that.

Rockhopper was conducting farm-out negotiations for Sea Lion during a secular Bear Market for oil, which turned out to be the most devastating ever. Who else but smart money knew that when the bear appeared in June 2008?
It's hardly surprising that now is the most pessimistic time for oil production given the current climate change opinion. Only the tiniest minority will recognise that oil is now bullish. If western governments truly follow the policies they are currently spouting, that will crush us. A lack of oil supply from western producers will raise the price exponentially.
I have no idea what else PMO2 is looking at for its future, but I'd like to think that Chrysoar turning up when the UKEF was rejected means some smart money has arrived. Whether that has something to do with the government oiling the wheels indirectly is a matter for conjecture.
Some people on here have suggested it is all too late for Rockhopper. That may be the case. The bears will be in force again when we have an oil price correction and will say the current uptick is just a dead cat bounce. But it is the future that matters and if Sea Lion does start producing, I'm betting that oil is extracted at a significantly higher price than it is today.

Sea Lion has top quality oil, there's more to come in Isobel Deep and more besides, including gas. The government there is friendly and won't start getting greedy when the money starts flowing. And as something has mentioned, they are even prepared to pay for Jolly Jack Tar.

The only question I've got to ask myself is: Do I feel lucky?

Right on cue:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-12/global-leaders-meet-to-discuss-cutting-emissions-climate-update?srnd=premium-europe

I have a Chinese sister-in-law and climate change is just not a topic for discussion in China.

Longtermthinker

Yes, I think your 'now or never' rationale is probably correct.

What we do know is that commodities bottomed earlier this year (althought gold, the leading indicator, bottomed in Dec 2015). So we are in a baby bull at the moment. There will be pullbacks along the way to deflate us all (soon, most likely), but the overall price trend is up. It's interesting that Chrysaor and Navitas turned up at the bottom of the market, which leads me to suspect they know what's what! That's great news.

Western governments seem determined to press ahead with their green revolution which will make energy costs sky high for us. I believe this will lead to the fall of the west that Martin Armstrong talks about, because we all know what high energy cost do to the economy. Believe me, China will be very happy to sell you an electric car but it won't be made from green energy or responsibly resourced materials.
So, although western demand for oil may decrease, Chinese, African and any other sensible nation's demand will increase as they industrialise further and become consumer economies. The big question of the 21st Century has to be what sort of world will it be when Americans wake up one morning to find they are no longer no.1 and the west becomes a price taker. The future is yellow.

I'm sure you've heard the expression 'when the Bank of England sells its gold, buy it from them; when the Bank of England buys gold, sell it to them'. What an irony it would be if, in a decade's time, the government buys Falkland Island oil production from Rockhopper et al because they are so desperate for cheaper energy. The government is full of little Gordon Browns. That is why I think UKEF won't happen; neither should it.

Precisely! When a politician says that something will happen 'as soon as possible', it really has no meaning at all. 'As soon as possible' could be by the end of the century.
Commodities are just starting an 8.6 year bull market. Not particularly through a massive increase in demand but through a lack of supply. Chrysaor and Navitas (and Rockhopper) are well placed to take advantage of this. I'd rather they kept government money out of Sea Lion.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/future-forecasts/ecm/the-next-8-6-year-wave-will-be-inflationary/

Important phrase: To be ended 'as soon as possible!'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55276769