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CEO said that because of the inadequacy of the previous rig they are going to drill TA1

Well, I listened to that, even though I am not currently a shareholder. The presentation was much as seen before when DM was still in charge, though the CEO did reiterate the problems with the previous drill campaign where due to the inadequate rig and the inability to carry out any logging they were left not knowing if they had a discovery or not.

The only important question now is when will they secure a rig and complete the next drill. They are not going to use either the Exalo or Predator rigs but have new options in mind. Timewise I think they said it would take two months to mobilise a rig with spudding in August. There is also talk of rig sharing - with Noble Helium - though that sounds like a very poor idea. In fact, HE1, for all of their faults, have a much bigger budget and m/cap than their Australian counterparts (NHE have a m/cap of less than £20M compared to HE1's £44M).

According to the Active Work Programme in the presentation the Rig selection & contracting process will take until the middle of May 2023, Mobilisation will be from the middle of May and into June, with drilling starting in mid to late July - and only I believe just the 1 well.

From Page 9:

Rig Update
Planning for Rukwa Phase II Drilling Campaign
HeliumOne AGM Presentation – February 2023
• Team is fully committed to Phase II Drilling in Rukwa with a re-drill of the Tai prospect with a new well (to ~1300m)
• Currently engaging with several rig contractors
• Active discussions ongoing amidst a dynamic rig market
• A preferred rig contractor has been identified that is very suitable to our requirements
• Engaging with another Operator regarding rig sharing options

More like every 10 years.............

UK Oil & Gas PLC

Turkey Earthquake
UK Oil & Gas PLC (London AIM: UKOG) is deeply saddened by the terrible earthquake and unfolding humanitarian tragedy in southern Turkey. Our partner and licence operator, Aladdin Middle East, has today advised us that our Resan licence area remains unaffected by the earthquakes, being located some distance away from the East Anatolian fault zone and the earthquake epicentre. Nonetheless, we continue to monitor the situation and will be looking at ways of how we can offer our support.

Thank you Mr Sanderson. I did suggest in a post yesterday that such an update would be good manners. On the positive side, if you can find positives in such a disaster, it sounds as if the drilling area is unaffected and the drill will continue.

I think that everyone accepts that they can't start drilling until the end of the rainy season, which is towards June. It was only Minchin who maintained otherwise and it looks as if he was only doing so to try and keep his job, which he has now lost.

So drilling will probably be on the same sort of timescale as 2021. The rig contract was signed towards the end of March (26th), then mobilised at the end of April (29th)with a spud date of mid-June (14th).

The rig contract may have to be signed earlier if the rig has to be imported from another country which looks likely (in 2021 the rig was mobilised from within Tanzania).

It looks like HE1 will be drilling at much the same time as Noble Helium, who have planned a Q3 drill now for ages.

So just a waiting game now.

'An SLB (in October 2022 Schlumberger announced a change of name to SLB) coiled tubing unit has subsequently moved onto the wellhead to commence a cleanout of the sand blockage which is scheduled to occur over the weekend.'

The cleanout is due to commence over the weekend. PANR have already said the cleanout will take about 10 days but that is without the delays that seem to be blighting this operation. Then the coiled tubing unit needs removing, the rig re-moving and the tubing replaced. Then the rig can be let go.

88E executed the rig contract on 7th December. It should never have been released to another party so close to the anticipated mobilisation date. The ****-up was when Pantheon needed another rig to clean out the well. They hadn't used this rig for the drilling and without them suddenly taking it in late January it would no doubt be sitting around idle and ready to mobilise on time. Now Pantheon are suddenly taking much longer to do this than they anticipated. End result: weeks of delay and maybe even a missed drill window?

surf1

Is there a drilling window in operation here with this drill? Say for example if the rig isn't released until mid-March and spud is into April and as this is quite a deep well at 12,500 ft is this all okay with the icepad, etc?

It has taken 17 days for the rig just to pull the tubing and packer from the wellbore. Nothing is going to time. PANR have previously said that 'operations for the cleanout are estimated to take approximately 10 days'. Then the rig needs to be moved - another few days - and then 'the Nordic Calista #2 rig will replace the production tubing prior to the recommencement of long-term production testing immediately thereafter.'

All in all a delay of weeks rather than days.

If the rig is not released until mid-March is that still safely within the drilling window?

Noble Helium has their drills pencilled in for Q3 and their presentation marks the rainy season as between December and May. Maybe DM was overly optimistic and possibly wholly inaccurate when he started to propose that HE1 could drill in Q1. Maybe it was a sign of desperation and trying to keep shareholders happy rather than facing them with the truth. In 2021 the drill spud in the middle of June even though the rig contract was in place from the end of March.

I'm in 2 minds here. I have been out of this since the rig fell through and only bought back in when one of the posters found info relating to the Predator rig. However on thinking about this, if HE1 were about to sign a contract surely the management here would have notified the market of this information before it was spotted by a shareholder.

Regarding today's RNS, it is both good and not-so-good news. D Minchin leaving is good news, as he quite simply hadn't delivered on the rig issue but I do not think his replacement is such a great choice. She obviously lacks experience and is a woman a perfect choice for a company operating in Africa where men still seem to have the upper hand? Maybe not.

As for the rig, if HE1 were about to sign a rig contract would D Minchin have left? No, of course not, as that would have satisfied his one failing and he would be very much back in favour. Nor would he have left in a hurry for his successor to take all the glory nor would not have been any grounds to fire him either.

What it does give is a great opportunity for HE1 to delay for a while, so the new CEO can find her feet so to speak and for her to make her own decisions on rig selection. As some posters are already posting about a May/June spud then obviously they are not looking at HE1 getting a rig contract signed any time soon.

My plan was to only buy back in when HE1 had a drilling contract signed and I think I will stick to that again.

Okay, I see that now as I have scrolled back through the posts and I can see that December's figures were released on 30th January. It just shows how much I don't really care what's going on here.

It reminds me of FRR - they had billion(s) of barrels of oil that they could never get to flow and look what happened to them. Their chat board still exists on this website even though they delisted in January 2019 with posters still vainly trying to get their money back. Some hope!

If the price of oil was back down to $40 or $50 a barrel COPL would have defaulted and gone into administration already, as did CUDA., and this would be a repeat, albeit less dramatic, of the OILEXCO disaster. Mr Millholland is unlucky and this time he has just bought badly.

I was under the impression that they came out quite soon after the month's end. Am I wrong? December's figures have been on the webpage for ages now - certainly several weeks.

Does anyone know when the latest figures are due? I thought they would have been out by now. Cheers.

Maybe we will get some director's buys - from Ian Stalker and the new CEO - to steady the ship.

Maybe also some news about the Predator rig - either they need to go with this now or tell us they have a better option.

Not much damage to the share price. Just a few silly sellers on the bell. 5.6p to buy now.

Director holdings after the last placing:

Ian Stalker - 11,251,343 - 1.37%

David Minchin - 310,000 - 0.04%

Now if D Michin had held millions of shares that might have been a cause for concern but 310,000 - that is only worth about £17K.