Member Info for CrustyPete

"The reason they gave spud date of Q3 next year is it gives them the option of bringing it forward to Q2, which gives a longer period of the dry season to drill. They were basing this on the seismic being done this year, which gives them enough time to process it after Q3, while it's the wet season, ready for start in Q2 if they wanted or the stated Q3."

Well that didn't happen did it? Process during the wet season? Well it is now the wet season and we haven't even started seismics yet.

And on that very issue we will be starting seismics now, as I had suggested might happen and I expect us not to have the "results" until end of Q1 maybe Q2 next year and yet that will still allow a drill in Q3 - which was the point that I was making in July and the one that you were repudiating. I still maintain that we will have completed seismics in time for a Q3 drill and even if they were to be delayed into January I still believe they could manage it.

But, no matter, water under the bridge.

LOL! Ha, now there's aa surprise. Actually I really haven't got the time right now PoC but yes, okay, give me a few days - I will rake through your dim and distant posts back to April and May and find it (or them, as there was more than 1).

Well that is your interpretation PoC but then so was your expectation that we would have seismic results by now and we all know what happened to that ;0)

"receiving the gas payments from TPDC opens the door.".

I would agree that it certainly assists with a possible dialogue but it is only one of many doors that need opening before that possibility were to progress.

Oh and Al, yes of course they could already "have eaten us up for breakfast" - as I said if they wanted to take us private they have had plenty of opportunity to do so - but by doing so they would now becarrying all of the risk and the cost of the high risk elements of any future license acquisition, exploration and appraisal programme whereas, as it currently stands, they only have 29% of that risk and cost and we AEX shareholders carry the remainder.

Then they pay for the benefits of that risk and cost. Which in itself would not necessarily be a bad thing for AEX shareholders if we actually got fair value for our investment - with Ruvuma the sale proceeds didn't even cover the costs let alone the risk, time and the market value of the underlying asset....

I think it was less about those payments and more about signing off of the Farm Out Agreement and License Extension. I have long said that the invoice payment was the most significant indication of a change of attitude and sentiment on the part of the Govt and their minions but also said it was only a question of when and not if.... Even then it was a compromise - only half of what was owed and with no interest.

In all honesty Al, no. If they had wanted to, they have already had a prime opportunity to do so - they could have taken over AEX for no more money than they have committed to spending on AEX's "free carry" and without the need to pay AEX 25% of the proceeds thereafter. That said, to buy AEX they would have had to spend "real" money not just year on year of credit (money which, in any event, they can offset as Capex).

But if they were to take AEX private, ARA would not be able to rely upon the generosity of shareholders and other II's to fund the high risk activities of buying licences, exploration & appraisal activity which then, once largely de-risked, our cornerstone shareholders can then acquire at a knock down price. (In Ntorya we actually spent more money on the exploration and appraisal of Ruvuma than we actually received from the sale proceeds of our 50% - even including the $35m of "credit". And why do you think ARA offered 87.5% of the Ruvuma "proceeds" to us in the in form of free carry? It ensured that, until Ruvuma started to produce income AEX was "skint" and couldn't go off and buy new assets or develop Nyuni / Kiliwani. Keep AEX cash starved so that they can never afford to take the asset through the full development cycle and optimise shareholder value whilst at the same time ensuring that we have no option but to sell those assets to our "controlling" shareholder, err cough, sorry, I meant "cornerstone investor".

In short, why take AEX private when you can rely on AEX shareholders to fund all the high risk elements of an East African O&G exploration programme whilst always knowing that AEX will always be forced to farm out or sell the crown jewels to a third party before completion of a development programme. Particularly when you have a 29% "controlling" interest, seats on the Board and a secured debt? ARA will always have the first refusal on any asset sale or dilution - particularly when as now, we have loans guaranteed against assets.

It is showing as a sell because it was executed below the "mid-price" and so LSE has interpreted it as a SELL; nothing more invidious than that. The issue is with LSE and they way that it attempts to classify a trade. Other sites do it differently and some indeed choose not to interpret it either way, leaving the "reader" to do that themselves.... it makes much more sense to do it that way in my view.

Ah! and there it is, back again. Apologies for the repetition.

I wish you all a lovely weekend.

Hi Alcapone, for fear of repetition, let me first say that I have answered this once today and very that answer appeared here on the board very briefly, however since early morning it appears to have disappeared. I will try to reply again similarly.

Nyuni for sale? Yes Al, maybe but then maybe not; have we not been told by the board that they are looking to find a development partner for Kiliwani without diluting shareholders? Surely a sale of assets is effectively a dilution? Actually I have no problem with a sale in principle; it is the "price" that I am concerned about, will shareholder get "value" for their assets? Or will it be our "interested party" that gets yet another cut-price bargain from a connected seller?

Maybe Alcapone, maybe, though I seem to remember that the Board were looking to develope the license without "dilution" - a sale would be a dilution would it not? However the point (for me) is not the sale but the "price" and whether AEX shareholders get good value.

We can only hope so.

So Tanzania, just to spell it out for you. Would Santos be any better able to resist the advances of our cornerstone investor if they came knocking? Would the AEX shareholders get "value"....? Will AEX still be majority shareholders of the Kiliwani and Nyuni licences in 2/3 years time?

Onlly time will tell?

No Tanzania not Santos. The "milking" I am referring to Tanz is simply the transfer of value from AEX shareholders to ARA through the derisory payments we received from a Farm-Out brokered by our former Board members to an interested party as a direct result of their amateurish mismanagement of our underlying assets. It is a pity that the "iron grip" that our erstwhile Chairman exerted over our assets wasn't quite so vice like when he accepted their "shilling".

Moreover I am not so sure that the news flow that you refer to has actually been received when many people were expecting it? According to some we should have had the seismic results by now ;0)

Moreover Tanzania, if you hadn't actually realised it by now I ought to point out that many of my comments on this BB are made "tongue in cheek" or as devil's advocate and to seriously suggest that any comments on this board (mine or anybody else's) have a meaningful impact on the market or investor sentiment is, frankly, comical.

Yes bigpat they haven't had enough of "milking" AEX shareholders yet.....

And even then they do not want it.

Perhaps they know that they would be wasting their time - it is no accident that ARA hold 29%

2024 I think you mean BG? And yes am not surprised that is what you think/ believe, (I have a not too dissimilar view) but the stark reality BG is that, at this particular moment in time, "the market" does not seem to share your optimism. Either the risk element, the timeframe element, the political element, the lack of a GSA, the lack of a pipeline, lack of income, stasis on Nyuni/Kiiwani or perhaps a combination of all of these things (and more) mean that potential investors are not yet ready to make the jump and invest their (or their client's) money in AEX. And the current MC is a reflection of that reluctance.

It will come but there is a lot yet to do before the reduction in these uncertainties translates into an improvement in SP and MC.

Good night all.

The value of the "carry" will have been largely eroded by the time the FFD has been concluded hence it has little if any value at all unless that expenditure is converted into additional shareholder value. That additional value is an equation of the value of the gas in the ground and the costs, the risks, the timescales and the expectations of future income and converting that into LSD for shareholders; many of these factors are an unknown or uncertain quantity at present and will only become clear as time passes and many of those uncertainties become clearer. In the intervening period the "solution" as Tanzania puts it is almost impossible to quantify; consequently the current market cap represents a "proxy" of the market's collective assessment of that "equation".....

Now you say that "Fair value with a pharma in tests can never be precisely measured" - so your statement that "we are a long way under fair value" is self-evidently and totally inconsistent and yet you state is as a "fact" and therefore is misleading.

So not just "nit-picking".

I will continue buying, thank you.

"we are a long way under fair value". That statement is pure conjecture - it may be undervalued by comparison with its peers but 4D Pharma has no income, no guarantee of income, significant overheads and an a large development budget to fund. Based on that equation it is virtually impossible to assess what is "fair value"...... All of 4D's peers could well be grossly "overvalued" (and most are, in my opinion - pumped up by hype and hot money).

I have been an investor in this business twice; once over 5 years ago and more recently from early 2020 onwards and I continue to be so, buying as cashflow allows. BUT I am not complacent and recognise that without proven, successful and marketable results from at least one of its current pipeline of trials this company could be worth nothing at all.

I remain optimistic. My belief is that they will find success on several fronts and are unlikely to remain an independent company once they do.

I will continue to buy but will never become complacent.

Would Scir shareholders accept a similar deal to AEX's? A reduced stake but with some cash and "full carry"?