Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
Harry,
IMO they will look to bring in a JVP for the drill. If not, then they will raise cash through dilution. This will of course hit the SP in the short term but in the longer term if they hit the jackpot and find oil who will care? If they don't hit oil then at least they will not have all there eggs in one basket and will still be operating so can move onto the next project....
Prior to the merger being announced, BPC is/was a high risk, high reward investment. What this merger brings to the table is the opportunity for BPC to diversify and mitigate the risk of the company going bust in the event of the perseverance drill being unsuccessful as they will have CERP assets to fall back on. (11.5mbbl in proven 40 API high quality oil reserves @NPV $90m , with a risk free drill, along with all CERP's other assets, Goudron, Saffron MC, Innis, Wag Nar Zee etc....)
IMO should the merger go ahead this makes BPC a much more attractive proposition to new investors, in that they have a 34% chance of hitting the jackpot if BPC do find their 1billion barrel target but with the security of knowing that if they fail they still have something to fall back on. Once the wider market realises this, it would be no surprise if the BPC SP rises substantially and the knock on effect of this would be that CERP will ultimately get a better deal if the deal goes through and BCP reduce their risk of going bust. This is a win win for both sides and despite some initial reservations I now see why both Leo and Simon are pushing so hard for this deal to go through.
ATB.
Prior to the merger being announced, BPC is/was a high risk, high reward investment. What this merger brings to BPC is the opportunity to diversify and mitigate the risk of the company going bust in the event of the perseverance drill being unsuccessful as they will have CERP assets to fall back on.
IMO should the merger go ahead this makes BPC a much more attractive proposition to new investors, in that they have a 34% chance of hitting the jackpot if BPC do find their 1billion barrel target but with the security of knowing that if they fail they still have something to fall back on. Once the wider market realises this, it would be no surprise if the BPC SP rises substantially and the knock on effect of this would be that CERP will ultimately get a better exchange rate if the deal goes through.
Any CERP investors who are adverse to any risk and want out can then do so (Hopefully above todays supressed SP) the ones who want to cling on for the ride can do as well! AIMHO.
Buckle up....;-)
One thing for certain
I'm one of the investor's who bought into CERP because I believed strongly in Leo's vision. Up until about 30minutes ago i was sat on the fence as to whether the merger was the right path for existing CERP Shareholders...
After listening to the interview I think the merger is the way forward, however I do still think that CERP should have got better terms. If you are a BPC shareholder this merger de-risks their holding substantially and i take Leo's point that once the news sinks in the market will realise this and the BPC SP will rocket now that the risk of going bust has been mitigated and in turn CERP shareholders will have a stake in something that could potentially be extremely high reward, albeit not as big a slice of the pie as the CERP shareholders would have hoped for.
It is certainly going to be an interesting few weeks!
ATB.
I'm one of the investor's who bought into CERP because I believed strongly in Leo's vision. Up until about 30minutes ago i was sat on the fence as to whether the merger was the right path for existing CERP Shareholders...
After listening to the interview I think the merger is the way forward, however I do still think that CERP should have got better terms. If you are a BPC shareholder the merger de-risks their holding substantially and i take Leo's point that once the news sinks in the market will realise this and the BPC price will rocket now that the risk of going bust has been mitigated and in turn CERP shareholders will have a stake in something that could potentially be extremely high reward, albeit not as big a slice of the pie as the CERP shareholders would have hoped for.
It is certainly going to be an interesting few weeks!
ATB.
Could be worse, it could be Brian Potter.....
Worth a look if you haven't already seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQT-xRi6JbI
It mentions that BPC have 34% chance of Success finding oil in hurricane alley. I can see why BPC are eager to put a few eggs in another basket...
Should the merger go ahead this would give CERP 26% share of 100mbbls (potentially)
CERP are sat on proven reserves of 11.5mbbls with NPV of $90M At wti of $45. Not even taking into account any of our others assets. On the face of it this gamble does not make sense. I'm starting to see where Bamps is coming from...
Let's hope Leo's video sheds some light. Do we think Leo and the bod would see things through at CERP should the merger be rejected by shareholders?
Fair point LGO-fan, I agree 2.6p is certainly not a fair price on the information we have available.
If the this does not get voted through though i suspect the SP will tank as investors will assume that there is good reason why Leo thought 2.6p was a good offer and worst case scenario there may be deeper financial issues than we are aware of so we could end up going bust and we are left with nothing. Best case scenario we will have a rough period with disengaged BOD until we have some results in from Saffron and Wag Naar Zee. On balance i would personally sooner be part of the amalgamated BPC/CERP group than tale that risk.
ATB. John.
Now that the initial shock has worn off i'm starting to come round the idea that this might not be quite as bad as i first thought. I still think on the face of things the CERP shareholders have got the thin end of the wedge but i also believe that Leo will have bargained hard so he will have got the best deal available when all things were taken into consideration.
BigMJ is a very experienced investor and while i appreciate he is limited to what he can share with us, i take onboard his previous comments.
I do think BPC have missed out by not retaining Leo in a more permanent role, i agree with previous posters who have suggested that his appointment as NED was is a token gesture to appease some of the CERP Shareholders. Personally i will not be to upset to see the back of Gordon as it never sat well with me that the CFO of the company never held a decent shareholding in the company, even though he earns a 200k + p.a salary.
Anyway no point dwelling in the past, onwards and upwards! Lets hope this is the start of something special.
ATB, have a good weekend all.
John.
Apologies, it was 21p @ Mcap 192m
'The Columbus Directors, who have been so advised by VSA Capital Limited as to the financial terms of the Merger, consider the terms of the Merger to be fair and reasonable. '
VSA Capital reiterated a buy rating of 24p a share just a few weeks ago, which equates to an MC of circa 250m so how on earth can they justify that a value of 25m is reasonable now?
Hi Scarface72,
With reference to your post 'The likes of bigmj and shroeders have more shares than all of us on this board posting today. So let's see why they are so happy with this deal'...
I've seen BigMJ's opinion on this. Do you have a link to the Schroeders view on this please?
I'm very interested to see what Schroeders have to say on this, based on the fact that the recent suppressed share price is mainly due to them selling off shares on a regular basis.... Maybe if they hadn't done this we may have got a fair trade value.
Thanks,
Agree 100% toldo610.
I invested in CERP because i bought into Leo Koot's vision for the company and was very excited for the future. At the moment i'm still in shock as on the face of things it looks we have been sold up the river....
This looks like an extremely bad deal for CERP shareholders. I still think there is some potential here but the terms of the agreement look poor to say the least.
LLL
There is always the possibility that in the current economic climate PRD may not have US$4.2m available to exercise the option to acquire FRAM within the permitted timescales. In which case if the CO2 inject program is successful this might benefit CERP in the longer term. I'm sure the CERP BOD would appreciate the cash injection to put into other more exciting projects at the moment but it's not a disaster if it doesn't happen. As i'm sure you are aware CO2 injection is a tried and tested method for extracting final reserves from EOL Wells and initial testing has been positive so not sure where you are trying to go with this?
This is worth watching if you are interested in the drilling process...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guFiQ87tg_s
Thanks Bamps.
Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management, Capital Accumulation Limited & HBOS Investment Fund Managers Limited are now the 3 biggest shareholders by volume, with 11.2% , 10.45% and 10.09% respectively. Michael Joseph also now has sizable 8.15% holding. Shcroders are now down to a 9.52% holding.
If Schroders had held tight instead off selling off shares following the Saffron news the SP would be at 3-4p imo. I do hope Schroders look back in 12 months times and realise what a bad decision it was to pull out of the oil sector....
GLA. ;-)
Thanks for this Bamps, very interesting.
So by utilizing the same drill pad you would hope that lessons will have been learn't from S1 that will hopefully prevent similar delays with S2?
Good Morning LLL,
There is always an element of risk with any investment of this type but IMO the risk with CERP is offset by the fact that they do not have all of their eggs in one basket. In addition, the fact that LK has offset the Saffron 2 drilling risk by using the same contractor and pad is a clever move. Lessons will most certainly have been learnt on S1 and the fact that the drilling contractor has agreed to finance the drill indicates they are very confident of success.
If i were a betting man (which i'm not) i believe that the odds are stacked in CERP's favour, and that this is not a 50/50 gamble as you would like to suggest....
ATB.