Member Info for Blubay

“just asking questions trying to understand the science whilst we wait”

Pretty standard across the drilling industry, although the specs would vary depending on the application. The issue is less about the pump and more about the properties of the reservoir and porosity. If you take the example of ADV that was what ultimately screwed them after a difficult equity raise for the pump and then not giving the anticipated flow of oil. Different kettle of fish for HE1 as they’re pumping ground water. The CPR summarises the range of risk in terms of flow, gas water ratio, and reservoir depletion, so you can take your pick between whatever view you take on the company’s best case scenario and the conservative scenario. I think the pump itself is probably a minimal risk in that equation. What they’re attempting to prove is both new and modelled on a best case. Fingers crossed for a positive result.

Sure, it's more a hobby share. Very few small cap exploration startups make it out of AIM but I think this one has an interesting company story. I don't allocate more than 5% of my portfolio to AIM to be honest and I don't have any other aliases on LSE. I pick one AIM share a year for interest value but the last two have been pretty dormant so this one's the only real interest at the moment. If I switch I'll be sure to let you know. Enjoy your day.

Oh I'm very open minded and wouldn't take anything on these forums without a hefty pinch of salt, but I would of course be genuinely concerned for anyone who might have followed any random advice they might have read to bag up on new shares at peak price on announcement of an AIM CLN structure and not to sell them ;-)

That’s good news as I remember you went in deep with multiple brokers for the raise and committed not to sell any shares. Glad to hear your trading positions have paid off for all of that. I sold all my shares the day the CLN was announced and bought back the day the agreement was terminated. Haven’t taken any profit on it but at least there’s twice as many shares. Onwards and upwards.

Good luck for the new year, I hope you manage to regain your losses from last year’s CLN retail share offer. Hopefully we’ll see a decent build as sales contracts antart to be announced and new wells are drilled.

At the risk of repetition, BNL currently trades 0.005 / 0.006, so a '20% rise' (or a 17% fall) just reflects the spread, depending whether the last reported trade was a buy or a sell. Because their SP is so low they ran out of decimal places and the % changes are therefore distorted.

BNL have now launched their $3.6m (AUD 5.5m) fundraise offer for existing shareholders, hopefully it'll be fully subscribed

https://www.bluestarhelium.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/61305825.pdf

I'm not sure the value of Galactica CO2 production is priced in at this stage. We have the confirmations of estimated $2m per year accrual from the helium production but that could double with beverage grade CO2. Understanding the financing for infill wells and phase 2 expansion will be relevant for the market, how much is self funding from phase 1, second processing plant etc. The testing in Rukwa remains the higher risk as the existing business case requires them to prove their own best case scenario rather than pitching for a range above/below a mid case. But at this stage the market doesn't seem to have priced in much at all for it, so hopefully there's plenty of scope there. If the testing goes well the focus should turn to financing options for the early stage production system to establish a proof of concept for processing commercial helium (five well drills, processing plant, gathering system and water disposal infrastructure). It won't be cheap but it'll be a fraction of the total projected project cost and hopefully manageable.

ITW-1 well pad in the green fields and summer sunshine, all set for testing soon hopefully

https://ibb.co/tpyCm7YQ

The business environment remains relatively stable and supportive for companies who are happy to play along with the politics. There remains a strong national policy of local content regulation, including controls on investment, production, import and export. Only companies established in Tanzania can extract raw materials and they should be processed to add value within Tanzania. The helium model fits this expectation better than some with onsite processing (although commercial processing will require establishment of another new local company separate to the new mining ops company). If the venture proves profitable then there may be quite a lot of government hand in the pot but with mutually beneficial security.

BNL and HE1 will act jointly to determine the pace and scope of development in Galactica, so there are decisions about how far to go, how fast and at what cost. In Rukwa, after the testing the big decision has to be about finance options for the early stage production system (five wells, processing plant and water management facilities).

The figures are all post Royalty, not pre. In effect, the land owner gets a defined % of the gas at source to sell (to be sold on their account) and the BNL operating accounts are based on the residual proportion.

Just to note the proviso that BNL's illustrative economic modelling is based on the processing plant running at 100% capacity, 365 days a year with an inflow of 4.2MMscf raw gas and no downtime. The seven wells drilled so far have a theoretical maximum flow of 3.5MMscf, with a projected initial stabilised flow between 2.2MM and 2.9MM. So, if all 7 wells were tied in (5 wells initially) then they should be able to feed the plant anywhere between 50-80% of its capacity. The rest will come from drilling new infill wells over the next 6 months, which both parties are hopefully fully funded to do once BNL complete their share raise.

PS. Morning MC, sorry, what is the apology for? Don't BNL's projections look pretty much on expectation, depending on the number of wells needed to reach plant capacity and the wide range of market prices, average gas concentrations etc. The big news is the value of the CO2 when that comes on stream, could well be closer to 100% earnings bonus rather than the possible 50% modelled at time of acquisition.

"The Blue Star Helium announcement today has projected cash flows. It’s worth a read"

Yes, nice to see numbers rather than vague aspirations, refreshing market oriented communications from a board that sound like they're hoping to run a business rather than a geological hobby project. I'm not sure if we have new information but it's clearly set out here.

Output at full plant capacity (after Royalty)

Helium product gas Mcf / month 2,200 @ US$350-US$600 per Mcf = e.g. c.$1m @ $450 (lower grade helium)

CO₂ sales gas Mcf / month 44,500 @ US$8.58-US$34.30/Mcf equivalent = e.g. c.$1m @ $22.5 (higher grade CO2)

Total gas production 46,700 Mcf per month @ Opex US$13/Mcf of sales gas = $607,100 per month

Implied gross margin at full capacity = $1.4m per month (if market mid range prices)

Potentially $25m per annum (gross) if full capacity sustainable at market mid price/quality? (BNL illustrate ~US$23.9m)

Opex for production taxes, equipment leasing and financing, fuel costs = $7.3m (c. 30%)

Implied pre-tax revenue = $17.7m per annum (c. 70% gross margin?) - BNL indicate net revenue of ~82.6% (?)

50% of which shared to HE1

Either way, lots of margin and growth potential, depending on wells drilled, market price fluctuations etc. Good work BNL.

For goodness sake Punter/Cat, do you wake up this miserable every day? I was the first person here to post the good news last night. I don’t need to be at my desk before 8am to justify your existence. Chill, enjoy the moment.

First Helium: Start-up of the Pinon Canyon processing facility completed and refined helium

gas successfully produced.

▪ Offtake: Commercial work continues in two phases.

o short term contracts to generate revenue in January 2026, and

o long term partnership agreements to secure sustained stable revenue.

▪ Forward Plan: Revenue growth during H1 2026 through additional well tie-ins and infill

drilling. Once plant full capacity is reached it is expected to be maintained via infill and

expansion drilling with operating life expected to exceed 12 years.

https://www.bluestarhelium.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/61304679.pdf

You've repeatedly implied it's all a done deal for the ESP, positive test results, investment decision, JV agreement. We're at least 12 months out from that investment decision but hopefully a series of positive steps to come. The proposed timeline is set out in the CPR, based on the feasibility study shared with Sproule ERCE. There was a bit of delay since then for the mining licence award but it gives a good sense of the schedule, give or take.

The CP recommended further appraisal on the gas-water ratio and the helium concentration, due to the high variability between samples, which hopefully proves up in the ESP testing and the new hydrological surveys. If that goes well then the next stage would be funding for...

"Five production wells are planned for the EPS, with drilling to commence in Q4 2025. Helium One has advised that there is an onshore drilling rig ready to deploy, and that each well would require 4 to 6 weeks for sequential drilling. Sproule ERCE considers this a realistic estimate for drilling time based on onshore drilling benchmarks. On this schedule, all five wells are expected to be ready before the EPF comes online in Q3 2026... The EPS is assumed to operate for six months before the full development project is commenced. FID for the full development is assumed to be taken at the end of December 2026, with drilling for the full development commencing in February 2027 and the full CPF coming on stream in November 2027".

The FID isn't planned until after the Early Stage Production system is built and proven, end of 2026.

No small cap AIM company is ever going to rule out all possible options for financing investment, operations or even working capital. The whole point of listing on AIM is to access risk capital that wouldn't be available by other means, and all AIM companies are between capital raises, just a question of how much, when and at what cost. They've said their preference would be for least dilutive methods, if they have a choice, and they'd hope to get access to debt when they can prove sufficient collateral. They've also been clear that some equity sharing would be likely in Rukwa if that goes ahead at scale (e.g. with a partner). They've also said they want to get as far as possible on their own. That makes good sense as the asset value increases with each stage of de-risking, which increases the collateral available for debt and decreases the amount of equity required by a future partner sharing project risk. If the ESP test goes well then I'd expect them to raise for the early stage production system in Rukwa (five wells and processing plant), maybe in combination with a loan secured against one or other project. We'll see.