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The results have to be notified to the market via an accepted Regulatory Information Service, but. That’s not solely RNS. There are others that will release at the weekend.

“The Financial Services Authority has authorised the following services providers to provide comparable regulatory disclosure services to AIM companies.
• RNS provided by the London Stock Exchange
• Business Wire Regulatory Disclosure provided by Business Wire
• PR Newswire Disclose provided by PR Newswire
• FirstSight provided by Romeike
• Announce provided by Hugin ASA
• News Release Express provided by CCN Matthews UK Limited“

I don't think they have to publish the interims by RNS to meet the AIM rules - there are other services that can be used like PR Newswire, which could publish over the weekend. The results can also appear on the website, though I don't think that counts as informing the market.

If they don't publish by the 31st, I believe AIM will suspend then 7am Monday. Even if they then publish 7am Monday, I think the suspension will still stand albeit a notice to resume trading will soon follow.

That would be rather pointless though. Unless there is a serious lights-out problem, I think the results will be out later today.

Hello Thebhoys,
just to be clear, Potter has resigned from the Columbus Energy subsidiary, not from the board of Challenger Energy.

Just to add to my comment about UK/IoM insolvency, while CEG is an IoM company, Columbus Energy Resources is a UK company and as far as we know still holds the T&T assets. It would be governed by UK insolvency law.

Interestingly CER is late filing its own 2020 accounts, and Potter & Proffitt have just resigned as directors leaving just Eytan standing. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05901339

“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But until either position becomes apparent we are still solvent.”

It’s Schrödinger's insolvency then?

Why wouldn’t it be apparent yet - the last of P1 bills were due 6 months after completion according to Eytan.

LLL, that UK position on trading while insolvent won’t touch CEG. CEG is an Isle of Man company where the rules are less clear cut. The company can apparently continue to trade if the directors have the get-out that they are acting in the interests of all creditors.

https://dq.im/important-considerations-for-company-directors-during-the-covid-19-crisis/

It means up to date on their bills in T&T (or able to pay them when due).

It’s one thing owing international firms money, but owing money to the local providers who they may rely on for day-to-day services would be more problematic.

CEG weren’t current in T&T at the end of last month as part of the $15m shortfall in the accounts was listed as S2.

As for not demanding payment, my guess is that there is no money to take. CEG could have made the argument that they had no money, could only raise $10m, and could only raise money if shareholders had something buy into: I.e. the raise funded S2 as well and the creditors only got part of the $10m to repay their debts.

That may be the story going forward: the creditors may allow CEG to stay alive if it can bit by bit raise some money and pay them back.

How do you know Stena are the bulk of the costs, or even $1 of the costs?

Here we go again. Eytan explained in one of his Q&As that the Icemax was zero rated during the halt. The extra costs are the costs of having various other contractors sitting around while the drilling was paused.

Stena wouldn’t be liable to CEG for the consequential losses of a drilling incident. Firstly they wouldn’t be forced into taking that liability by a minnow like CEG. More importantly CEG have openly stated that these are their costs to settle, and never given any suggestion that they have a related claim against Stena to offset them.

i) The Lower Cruse at Saffron was a low risk-appraisal for 200b/d and would launch a highly economic 4000b/d development.
ii) Robert Riley, about the best candidate conceivable, was joining the board
ii) The aussie mates (Bizzell Capital) were putting in £2.5m convertible at 8p
iv) With that cash they would settle the outstanding liabilities.

So that's why it was trading north of 3.5p, and the 0 from 4 scorecard since is why it's now 1.1p. Was it all bad luck or were the risks really portrayed honestly?

I don’t agree with Druid either - I don’t think CEG have misrepresented what acreage they hold in SWP. The fact that other acreage in SWP is available now seems unrelated to CEG’s activity, given that basically all the unlicensed acreage in the south of the island is offered to anyone that wants to make an offer for it.

However I don’t think we know for sure if the 9 “Saffron lookalikes” are beneath CEG’s acreage or if they’re spread over the wider SWP.

Slide 27 here seems to imply to me these prospects are drawn from 3D seismic that covers much more of the wider SWP, so they probably aren’t all on CEG’s licences.

https://d1ssu070pg2v9i.cloudfront.net/pex/bahamas/2021/03/25213812/bpc-update-presentation-march-21.pdf

$100 oil is really not at all helpful to CEG. That's because above $75 realised, they have to Trindad SPT which is an 18% revenue tax (noting that their realised prices from Heritage something like 15% less than Brent.

So for example:
$80 oil - $68 realised. Royalty $17, SPT $0. Net revenue $51 (before opex)
$90 oil - $76.5 realised. Royalty $19, SPT $14. Net revenue $43.6
$100 oil - $85 realised. Royalty $21, SPT $15. Net revenue $48.5.

I’m not expecting too much from the interims. They won’t need auditing so the board may say very little about the current situation and forward plans, potentially being very vague about work commitments, licence renewals and outstanding bills.

The June 30th cash balance is out of date already and may not be clear on how much S2 spend had occurred at that stage, and the six months’s P&L will be dominated by P1 which will therefore rather obscure current T&T profitability.

"The Group currently estimates that it has a need for approx. $15 million in ADDITIONAL funding in order to continue to meet its obligations as and when they fall due over the 12 months from the date of this report" (my emphasis).

Does this really need to be said? If CEG could raise RBL finance they would have drawn it down by now, because it would be far cheaper than any other convertible debt or equity they’ve had to resort to so far. Nobody is going to lend to a small oil co that *might* just be able to squeeze a profit as long as oil holds above $80 for 10 or so percentage points of interest, when RBL is just as probe as any other debt to being wiped out if CEG go bust.

And as for farming out SWP, I don’t think that’s their stated intention. I think you may be confusing SC’s ideas for the company’s - I can excuse you that when the company seem to have gone silent on their current state of affairs and their next plans.

Zag,

Appropriately enough the AGM notice is out and it's Mssrs Potter, Uliel and Bizzell up for a vote this time around https://www.cegplc.com/investor-relations/constitutional-documents/ . Sadly though I think a new guard would only be able to bring some closure by picking through the skeletons rather than turn things around.

If it wasn't surreal enough, CEG now seems to be getting itself in trouble for trying to decommission its field in Spain as well https://www.diariodeburgos.es/Noticia/ZC73EC25D-C639-4A47-52F2085CDF72E290/202109/La-Junta-levanta-acta-por-acceder-sin-autorizaci%C3%B3n-a-La-Lora

And a few more barbs thrown at CEG in the presentation, slide 13.
https://wp-predatoroilandgas-2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2021/09/28070152/Webinar-Presentation-website-Version-28092021.pdf

Certainly hasn't addressed many of the outstanding questions. The $15m hole is bigger than I expected yet we have no clear guidance on where it comes from. Likely the P1 bills are not getting agreed as favourably as they'd hoped.

Apparently one of the T&T licences has a commitment to drill 5 wells on it by year-end, but we aren't told which. Worst case, could it be I-T, which would put a third of production at risk? Is the 5 well cost in the $15m (actually that looks too low if it were)?

And I notice that Robert Riley is gone from the website so that appears the end of his "pending" appointment. Who is going to give this company $1m let alone $15m? What were the promises last time they put the bowl out: Bizzell putting in $3m (which CEG then "decided wasn't required"), S2 lower cruse low risk appraisal, new director. I'd say it was a string of failures but actually more like a string of falsehoods.

Oddly CEG have this week filed their Annual Return with the Isle of Man Companies Registry, yours for £2. It appears to confirm the company has had its 31 December 2020 accounts completed, and the filing is meant to be accompanied by a copy of the audited balance sheet, though that is not made available online if it was provided.

The filing has also been done by Benjamin Proffitt. So as well as the shuffling of the Board, it appears CEG don't yet have a new FD/Secretary yet even though he gave his notice in April.