Member Info for Blubay

Comms have not been dire at all. They’ve been timely, clear and the point as far as I can see, and carefully confirming to the market rules (in the same way they have paid attention to upping their game on O&G operational protocols and H&S etc.). Companies simply are not run to massage the egos of PIs who have never put a penny into the business and just trade off its reputation.

Great to see LB appear at the event without prior billing, hopefully she’s there to share good news

I agree Skittish, as I speculated earlier in the week, I have a hunch next stop will be Eyasi rather than Itumbula, just a hunch

Yes, it will likely be stop-start for flow checks, safety/maintenance monitoring etc, they can’t afford to make a mistake with this part of the operation and risk any impediment to wire lining TD

LW - With respect, I think that’s a complete fiction and basically nonsense. The new/current board appears to have quite a high degree of trust as far as I can make out (compared to the loss of trust in the previous leadership). Even on this discussion board I see multiple posts asserting trust in the CEO/board and about two active posters asserting distrust.

NHE price has gone down despite a no hitches shallow drill, theatrical enthusiasm for multiple gas shows and mentioning the word discovery. BCE even hit oil in about the safest spot in the world, with confirmed reservoirs far in excess of expectation and their SP has gone down just because they are waiting on the clean up and pump installation process. Bitcoin goes up and Bitcoin miners shares go down. Madness really but risk-off is where we are. If you want guaranteed gains buy government bonds or get a high interest cash savings account!

I think it’s a very silly and opinionated comment. The share is not performing any worse than similar companies at similar stages on AIM in the current intensely risk off market. The board have proved remarkably strategic and effective so far. I don’t think trust comes into it.

Ah OK, I see what you mean, hedging their bets then that they may have messed up the handling of the samples on-site (or that the concentrations are just too low to announce them to the market before confirmation).

You’re confusing two different things LW. Helium shows in mud logs (while drilling) are contaminated when they are analysed at surface. Down hole samples are different, if retrieved and sealed at down hole pressure.

The risk is that Helium shows are not "commercial", full stop (which is what happened at the upper levels of Tai1/2).

HE1 have done brilliantly to get to this stage, and every stage they de-risk more and more, removing uncertainties. But that shouldn't be confused with any certain or even highly probable outcome in the short term. That's why only high risk investors go in for these type of prospecting shares before results. But probably the bigger risk of shareholding on AIM is time, the longer you hold the more likely you are to see price decay or dilution. You have to balance the operational risks of drilling against the market risks of holding a share. Everyone has their own timescale and appetite for risk.

Sinequanon - could also have the opposite effect, accelerating the commercialisation roadmap by bringing forward appraisal of the TaiC well to phase 1 while the rig is onsite to case and so on (slight gamble without having prior independent confirmation, but cost effective if they were sure of what they had there).

Free gas sampled at any level will be transformative. The basement is one of the primary targets, it is not the only one. If they sample gas at more than one level it will doubly transformative as it points to a range of commercial opportunities across the field (and Noble target shallow traps)

It will be indicative Cyber, they cannot register a 'discovery' without the independent confirmation

That's right, they have all the necessary kit and expertise calibrated and waiting to go there.

It's pretty clear from the interview that LB would like to drill deeper, if they can. So keen that they would risk deferring drilling at Itumbula in order to do it, if they can. So that either means they don't think they have enough to go at without trying for that revised deep target depth, or they believe there is something there that might trump any discovery they already have (in terms of de-risking the whole Rukwa basin prospect). Or that she just wants to deliver precisely on what they set out to do at Tai.

If they do have a discovery, then I also have a slight hunch they might prefer to extract maximum data from Tai now, and then move onto Eyasi rather than drilling another exploration well in Rukwa at Itumbula. Rukwa is going to be derisked further by Noble and possibly others anyway. De-risking Eyasi would bump up the HE1 company portfolio hugely in terms of added value.

Pete - "What might they find in the wireline logging would change their mind? Reduced risk or greater reward or a combination of the two? And what might those determinants be?"

They'd be looking for confirmation or recalibration of deeper target zones to drill onto, based on indications of porosity from the wire line logs. Wire lining tells you more about the formation properties of the rock structure (remember they drilled this well mainly on the basis of surface level and arial seismic data. Data from down the hole tells you a huge amount more. That would involve both geophysical and petrophysical data. No point risking deeper drill if there aren't more promising targets reachable than the one they've just entered by chance, or if the structure would pose extreme challenges to drill.

No need for the diatribe. You made a decision to invest and you made a decision to disinvest. That's fine, you made the choices based on your assessment. You don't have to kick anyone else.

I suspect there's also a judgement call between having your geologist hat on (having a one shot well opportunity and wanting more valuable data) and having your business hat on (for which any kind of 'discovery' might be enough to transform the company finances/sustainability). Clearly, if it did take 'months' to verify lab results abroad (in the UK) then they will have to survive in the market on the likelihood of their own gas analysis being accurate, and nearing the end of their current cash runway.

Others will have a better hands-on drilling knowledge than me, but basically the data from the wire line will help map the geological structures down hole and identify potential porosities/reservoirs at different levels in more detail. If they can get samples from different levels under pressure then they'll also get true readings on gas concentration (the mud logs just give clues where to look for elevated levels). The most important thing is not to risk damage to the well before getting the data and the samples. Once they have those then they could decide to risk drilling further into the basement, while also knowing more about it's structure. The risks could be damage to the well, damage to the rig, getting stuck etc. Clearly they would like to go the whole way if they can.

Indicative results from onsite analysis shouldn't take long at all. Independent lab verification out of country might take 'months'