Our latest episode of the Investing Matters Podcast, featuring Janet Mui, award-winning investment industry commentator, has just been released. Listen here.
I wish he's just kept to the bridging loan to pay for CUDA.
I wish he'd put the whole caboodle up for sale. He recently said that acquiring CUDA:
"Provides significant leverage to COPL increasing the Company's NPV10 (47% working interest adjusted) by US$122 million from US$258 million (COPL December 31, 2021 NI-51-101 Reserves) to US$380 million."
am I correct in thinking that the NPV10 is much the same as the NAV. The current m/cap is about US$53M.
By the way does this NPV10 include any value attributable to the Federal Deep significant discovery or is it excluding that part of the asset?
The truth is I've been in this business long enough to know what a near billion barrel of oil CPR is going to do to the share price and m/cap. Particularly when a well has already been drilled and it is in a safe environment.
There is no way this SP didn't rise through the 20p's and into the 30p's and up towards the 40p it reached in January on the first announcement of the significant discovery.
Somebody has been selling/offloading shares and it certainly isn't PI's.
Nevermind with plenty of news due now the CUDA business is finally sorted let's hope things improve.
ATB
To be honest warrants should never be exercised until the share price is 2x, 3x or even 4x the exercise price. They are not loan notes either. With a loan note the funds have been forwarded to a company in exchange for shares and the Loan Note issuers have to sell the shares to get their money back.
Warrants are in effect bonus shares but they still have to be bought at the exercise price. Sometimes warrants never even get exercised and quite simply lapse but as the warrant holders have never paid anything for them - unless they exercise them - then it doesn't really matter.
It just seems very stupid if they are being forward sold at this current share price but I cannot see any other explanation for where these cheap shares are coming from.
All in all this is a bit of a c*ck up now. My reflections are as follows:
The market and share holders were quite happy that CUDA was due to be paid for by the arranged bridging loan and just prior to completion the share price was around the 21p mark. Then at the 11th hour the COPL management announced the alternative Bond deal, which immediately did not go down too well with the market and the shareholders.
Bonds are okay and should not be confused with Loan Notes. Bonds are always repaid in cash and do not get converted into shares - that is unless repayment is defaulted. On default of repayment the bonds will be converted into shares and this will quite often lead to mass dilution of shareholder value, though with these bonds being of quite a smallish amount - $100M is usually a quite normal size - then dilution might not be terminal. If it is then often the bondholders will end up with 90% - 98% of the shares in issue and the existing share holders will end up with virtually nothing.
Obviously to avoid such problems COPL will need to repay the bonds, which can be redeemed at any date up to maturity. Whether they can do this with the RBL facility I don't know but they will certainly need to increase revenue, reduce spending and be sensible - ie. no further acquisitions.
So if bonds are generally okay and do not convert into shares except in the event of default of cash repayment then what is currently keeping the share price down to such a ridiculously low level?
I think the answer may lay in the warrants that were issued to the bondholders.
"Warrants expiring 30 months from the Issue Date shall be issued to the Bondholders, providing for the right to acquire an aggregate number of 54,792,590 COPL common shares. Each Warrant is exercisable at 16.75p."
I have never even come across warrants being issued to bondholders, and certainly not in the vast quantities that are seen here. I thought this was strange at the time. To get these warrants the bondholders will have to buy them at 16.75p and to exercise the whole amount will add revenue to COPL of over £11 Million ( almost enough to pay off one of the 2 bonds in itself!). But at the same time that is 54 Million new shares in issue which is a 20% dilution of current shares in issue.
My only explanation for the share price is that these warrants are being forward sold now and are counteracting what would be a rising share price. As the warrants are exercisable at 16.75p to be selling them at 17.5p/18p is clearly a profit, if not a big one and will ease any worries that the bondholders may have if SP goes any lower.
These are just my thoughts.
Meanwhile I think we will hear pretty soon about increases to production. 2720 bopd was a previous high and now COPL need to get back to increasing production and maintaining the higher production levels. I feel they can also push production into the 3000/5000 bopd range quite easily now the CUDA business is sorted.
ATB
For those who are new here, and maybe a little more over-enthusiastic than necessary, ORCP raised £800K only 4 months ago "to support Green Hydrogen Project Development".
Funnily enough that was at a higher price than today's raise - at 0.325p. Oh dear, the project is losing value already!!!
So what happened to this anyway - or has fertiliser gone out of fashion. Let's face it the management here are a bunch of cranks:
16 December 2019
Oracle Power PLC
("Oracle", the "Company" or the "Group")
Joint Development Agreement Signed with the Private Office H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum and China National Coal Development Company
Oracle Power PLC (AIM:ORCP), the UK energy developer of a combined lignite coal mine and mine mouth power plant located in Block VI of the Thar desert in the south-east of the Sindh Province of ****stan (the "Project") on Sunday 15 December 2019 entered into a Joint Development Agreement ("JDA") with the Private Office of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Juma Al Maktoum ("Private Office") and China National Coal Development Company Limited ("CNCDCL"), a subsidiary of China National Coal Group Corporation (collectively with Oracle, "the Parties").
This JDA follows on from the Company's announcement of 19 November 2019 detailing that the Company's flagship Thar Block VI has been included in a proposed new initiative between the governments of ****stan and China with respect to gasification of coal into fertiliser. The Project is also enshrined within the intra-government initiatives under the China-****stan Economic Corridor ("CPEC"). This new initiative runs in parallel to the Company's remaining long-term plan to construct and operate a mine-mouth power plant on Thar Block VI, also included as a "Priority Project" within the CPEC. The Company believes this JDA supersedes and replaces the previous Memorandum of Understanding (dated 19 December 2018 and subsequently amended: www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/ORCP/14016881.html) and provides for an all-encompassing development scenario for both aspects of the aforementioned projects.
The JDA foresees the creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle to develop and undertake both projects. It is envisaged that the Project will be funded on a 75% debt and 25% equity basis, with the proposed ownership as follows:
CNCDCL 73%
Private Office 15%
Oracle 12%
Incompetent trader - no, I don't think so.
I bought in for the 2 gold projects which looked good prospects at the time and seemed a positive move to diversify away from the string of failed coal projects in ****stan. Unfortunately they haven't quite worked out - at least not share price wise. One is deemed a fail while the other has been assigned "an Exploration Target based on historical results and the results of the recent seven drill holes which indicates 200-250Mt at 0.4-0.6g/t Au for 2.5 to 4.8Moz Gold". This looks okay and word is that they are looking for a JV partner to pay for the drilling to take this further in exchange for a chunky percentage. This might still be enough to see me get my money back.
As for Green Hydrogen - dream on - that looks to be another failed project. All talk, lots of spends but no action - and if it did ever happen it looks to be a very small project which will not be a great financial success.
Spiked or whatever - but I see no future here and as soon as I can get my money back I am gone. Absolute tosh. Coal to fertiliser indeed - and that Joint Development Agreement was signed nearly three years ago and no progress has been made since. In fact it hasn't been mentioned since. And the Great Sheik was in on that as well - https://www.investegate.co.uk/oracle-power-plc--orcp-/rns/joint-development-agreement-signed/201912160700099096W/
I suppose the only surprise here is that the Great Sheik hasn't seized the opportunity to double his money by selling his whole stake and buggering off. Maybe he is just waiting for a better opportunity to get a better price so he can also recoup the funds he seems to be throwing away on this Green Hydrogen nonsense.
Yes, I agree, of course the Sheik should have bought in at a substantial premium when he first took his stake in ORCP.
Washers, you are welcome to your 16 million shares here and good luck to you. I think you might need it. I have 1 million bought about a year ago at 0.5875p and I have been trying to get rid of them at cost price ever since with no success. I actually bought in for the 2 gold prospects though the share price has done nothing but tank ever since.
I honestly haven't got a clue what the f*ck this green hydrogen project is all about and I don't really care and no doubt it will go the way of the other projects here.
I haven't quite given up on getting my cash back here, but then nor have I seen any reason to buy more to average down since my original purchase.
Reading this article it becomes clear that the priority project is still the Thar mine-to-mouth power plant. Unfortunately that was more or less forgotten about 5 or 6 years ago, probably under pressure from the climate change lobbyists.
The last time the share price rose of any note to 1.5p+ at the end of 2019 it was due to talk of a coal to fertiliser project, which similarly seemed to suffer from the usual Oracle all talk and LOI's but no action syndrone.
Now years later with energy and particularly elecricity prices spiralling upwards out of control it is still the originally planned power project which is still the priority but which is still sadly missing having not even reached the planning stage.
Unfortunately all the Sheiks in the world and all the green hydrogen projects still won't alter the fact that it is still the coal to electricity project that Oracle should have concentrated on and got up and running.
It is the Barron Flats Shannon Unit (miscible flood): (85% Working Interest) that has the most potential to rapidly increase production here to get this share price moving upwards. A 2 or 3 times increase from current production levels could easily see the share price back into the 30p's or higher even without the massive oil discovery.
From the recent RNS:
"At the time the Atomic transaction completed, the assets produced 1,100 barrels of light oil. After the implementation of a works programme by COPL, the asset has since then far exceeded original expectations and current production (gross) of approximately 1,600 barrels a day is restricted due to ongoing facility constraints. The Company is commencing its production optimization program which will unlock the current production restrictions increasing production in the short term, and in the future, through well optimization strategies, staged facility upgrades and additional development drilling."