Member Info for CrustyPete

I think I have explained that - Wentworth is a gas and energy producing, tax paying, revenue generating business and hence has some influence with the TPDC and Tanzanian Administration; AEX does not (apart from unjustified CGT) and hence doesn't. Wentworth isn't a large multinational, influential company, it doesn't need to be; it just needs to be supplying gas to the Tanzanian. A position that, for a very short period of time, AEX occupied until the Executive and Technical Management screwed it up.

It is a "chicken and egg" scenario Tanzania - at one AEX AGM it was suggested to me that had KN1 still been producing they wouldn't have found themselves in the predicament that they were at the time, i.e. waiting on License Extension (s), unpaid invoices, work programmes awaiting approval etc. The difference being that as a gas producer we would be able to exert significant leverage over the TPDC and Tanzanian Administration, supplying gas, paying taxes, generating electricity and so on. But the day that the gas dried up so too did AEX's negotiating position....

No not surprising at all Matt, I am nervous; sitting tight but recognise that I may well live to regret it. I have nearly 11 million reasons to be nervous and will have wasted over 10 years of my bloody life on this "project" to boot.

You are surely not surprised BP? What did you expect on the back of that last RNS, an uptick?

Oh I see - a bit like me struggling through the Govt enforced COVID lockdown in the same way as the Hinduja Brothers and the Duke of Westminster then?

I hope you don't mind my asking Tanzania but in what way do you perceive Wentworth to be in the same boat as us? They are producing gas, have plenty of cash, a regular income with no overdue invoices, no debt, pay shareholders a dividend in excess of 8% and are not having their life blood squeezed out of them by the Tanzanian Administration....

What boat do we share other than that we are both "invested" in Tanzanian gas?

So the changes brought in by the April License extension would appear to supersede that earlier presentation then....? It comes as absolutely no surprise to me as I had thought that to be the case for a long while. In the same way that I believed that the KN1 remediation work programme still needed "approval" by the TPDC and then lo and behold...

We had a similar conversation regarding Namisange several months ago and I suggested then that it had been lost as part of the renegotiated license area (Ntorya only) but you then found some "evidence" of that not being the case.... maybe you need to dig it out again BG?

For the money they pay for the gas is it actually worth the risk vike? They can extract good value via a GSA, get a shareholding and not have to worry about funding, project management, risk drill failure or anything else. Moreover it would be the year 2050 before the drill bit started turning!!

Yes vike, that's what I meant by the alternative approach - the historic strategy hadn't brought results... And regarding the volte face on the extension, yes, that possibility had already crossed my mind. Brinkmanship though in Tanzania....? Do the the Tanzanians even understand the concept?

I hope you are right there vike. In truth the alternative approach has never been proven to work - this is high stakes poker and the cash on the table belongs the shareholders. I would suggest that APT don't much care either way - they will end up with the assets one way or another.....

And I thought that Charles Santos was supposed to have worked for the United Nations? Not their typical negotiating style methinks!! ;0)

Indeed and does the reason for Robert Ambrose's appointment now become clear? He was the person that was appointed to deliver the "coup de grace" to shareholders and oversee the final transfer of all asset value from shareholders to the Zubairs; the process initiated by Brain Hall years ago.... ;0)

Only joking!

No great surprise but there are a number of largish sales going through..... if you are bailing out be quick! I am resigned to my fate. :-(

If it is a complete sale it will be slightly disappointing - I was hoping Solo would hang in for the CH1 drill personally, even if only with a smaller holidng.

"yes its all hard to quantify, but its going to be a damn sight more than where we are now." yes indeed BG but to be fair anything at all would be considerably more than where we are right now.

Seriously though yes, I think there is considerable upside to come here - that is why I am still a shareholder, haven't sold out and indeed hold more today than at any previous point (are you listening FJ?). The problem though BG as we have all experienced in the past, there have always been far to many breaks in activity for the sp to gain any sort of momentum; even if we get the F/O approval will the "pipeline" of activity - (in no particular order) F/O approval, seismics initiated, drill selected and booked, spud date "booked" for CH1, 25 year Dev License approved, pipeline build initiated, CH2, 3 and 4 locations isolated, GSA signed etc, etc, etc- follow in quick succession? Can we resign the experience of the last 10 years to history or will the pattern of glacial progress and minimal support from the Tanzanian Administration continue unabated?

Oh and of course I haven't even addressed Nyuni and KN1, unpaid invoices and deal or merger talks so there are an awful lot of potential catalysts for a good sp rise BUT these things have to be resolved quickly otherwise any sp rise will quickly dissipate.

With regard to the "merger" discussed earlier today I only hope that we are in a position to negotiate a equitable deal that does not involve transferring most of the shareholder value from AEX shareholders to our new JV/Merger partner in much the same way that our current proposed F/O to our cornerstone investor does.

edgar just to be clear it is NOT $40m it is $5m plus $35m of credit and that is far from the same thing; with $35m in my pocket I have total freedom of when and how I spend the money - AEX could diversify outside of Tanzania - with the current arrangement they have no choice. That will severely undermine the perceived value of that $35m..... the other $5m has already been spent on tax! So the "cash" value of that deal - circa $20m in my view and that is already in the price methinks. The "real" value and the upside is the future earnings attributing to the 25% that we retain and that is difficult to quantify.

Oh and Tanzania - what it is not clear cut is that if we hadn't accepted those terms whether we might well have be offered better terms.... we will never know.

So Tanzania I will admit (and not for the first time) that had we not farmed out (and remember we haven't completed it yet) we would now be in hot water (and may still yet be) but that is a grossly oversimplified summary. That does not address why it was that we needed to farm-out in the first place, why it was that we were forced into a fire sale, why it was that we took a price that grossly undervalued those assets and, even if you were to accept the "price" why it was that we took so much of it as "credit"... all of this is a product of a series of events that all were overseen by BH. Through the gross mismanagement of our cash and assets we were forced into a fire-sale of our most precious asset to our own cornerstone investor (conflict of interest?), accepted a low ball offer that was 90% credit and gave us absolutely no option to de-risk from our 100% reliance on the Tanzania Administration.

So Tanzania I will give him this - he did very well to get our Market Capitalisation to £270m at the height of the NT2 drill but he and the Board were totally responsible for the total erosion of value that has occurred from that day forward. The seeds that we are reaping now were all sowed at that time and under his watch.

So three cheers to Brian Hall, hip hip....

Tanzania are you the Chairman of the Brian Hall fan club? Indeed, are you Brian Hall?!

I am not going to respond to this same call to arms yet again - my response is as before. We are where we are today because of a combination of the failings of previous Boards (and that includes those that BH was part of) and the dysfunctional Tanzanian Administration. To name a few, the near disaster of the NT2 drill, the total debacle that was (and still is) KN1 and the squandering of cash that now leaves us so parlous all occurred under BH's watch. It is because of those things and the glacial pace of development under the Tanzanian Authorities that we have continually had our "backs to the wall". Yes, indeed, well done Brian Hall. We might well have been worse off under another CEO or Chairman but we should hardly be congratulating him for our current predicament surely?!