Member Info for dickupham

Greener - why do you think it should fall upon a "technical" director (in this case a man with oil running through his veins as a result of a lifetime spent in the sector in many different locations and environments, for a number of top companies, with increasing levels of responsibility) to "get a farm out done". In my book, the principal responsibility should fall on the CEO/CFO, with the technical team ready to provide all the information needed to validate to the offeree the assets on offer. It now seems clear there was nothing wrong with what was on offer - it just took longer than most were expecting.

Generally speaking, completing complex corporate deals always takes longer than anticipated. All kinds of different issues have to be resolved and each situation is different. I am no statistician, but it would be interesting to find out how long it takes on average to complete a UKCS farm out of any size. My guess is that 15 months would be about par for the course. Taking Smith and Forbes onboard (the decision must have been influenced by Les Thomas - the three of them had much to offer, having relatively recently completed the sale of Ithaca to Dalek, albeit at a price Malcy and others apparently thought at the time was too cheap).

I dare say RL is managing to occupy his time productively - and in ways that are preferable to those associated with directing an AIM-listed oil junior. I imagine he must be spending more time sailing - rumours are he's in training for next year's America's Cup in Barcelona.

I know nothing..............

............"all they need is someone to distribute the Neo payments through special dividends as and when they come in"........

......that one had me spluttering in my coffee, alsoppc. Have you considered a career in comedy?

:-)

17.39 post.............wise words, chinch

.......we're not old enough to be told what "significant cash" means. Presumably it doesn't show the TE acquistion in a good enough light. Only a year for Mercuria to wait now before it can smoothly reclaim TE with SQZ on top. They must love Sunak & Hunt because it's probably not going to cost them any more than they bagged for TE on its own. Was it $21 per boe?? the term: "sprat to catch a mackerel" comes to mind. Talk about naive.

Great numbers today (subject to what "significant net cash" means". Pity we won't own it for long.

Call me a cynic if you like. I don't give a FF. I'll be delighted to eat huble pie if I'm found to be off the mark.

all imo

dyor

NEO's owner:

"As sector specialists, we invest across the spectrum of companies in this large industry, with a focus on companies that help drive the energy transition. In addition to stand-alone investments in renewable power generation, CCS, alternative fuels and other decarbonization activities, we use our long history and deep networks in the industry to partner with the traditional oil and gas companies to help accelerate their journey towards a low-carbon future.

HitecVision manages energy-focused private equity funds with a total committed capital base of EUR 8 billion. Our high-quality investor base consists of leading institutional investors from Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East – including public and private pension funds, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments and fund-of-funds.

HitecVision is a member of the Norwegian Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and is regulated as an Alternative Investment Fund Manager by Finanstilsynet – The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway. HitecVision is a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment and the The Net Zero Asset Managers initiative".

https://hitecvision.com/about-us/

I wish people would stop referring to the EPL as a"windfall tax". It is no such thing. The additional 35% is charged on ALL UKCS profits, regardless of the price of oil or gas when those profits were made. It is a heist on the UKCS upstream industry, which is easy to attack because, after all, its digging out all that horrible stuff that's going to end humanity next year or, if not next year the year after that. Ask Greta to fill in the rest.

Even Banana Republics don't behave in the way these "desperate to get elected" clowns are doing. They'll have the UK population huddling together to keep warm in winter and walking or cycling everywhere instead of driving, assuming bicycles aren't banned because they need oil to lubricate the parts. Foreign holidays? What are those? What happened to all those airports? The above is what could face our children and theirs. Utter stupidity. It will be too late by the time the penny drops for Sunakhunt and Stoma. The NS will be dead. Murdered.

Many journalists/presenters already get the overall picture re driving gas & oilcos away from the NS, but most haven't cottoned onto the fact the EPL is a heist, not a windfall tax. Politicians have chosen a sector of the economy and decided to tax it to oblivion. What sort of precedent does this set if they're allowed to get away with it? What about taxing holday companies at 90% - they cause a lot of carbon emissions? Or companies that sell alcohol 80%?They cause a lot of harm. Pick a number. Pick a sector. Has to be popular though, or it's a vote loser.

Unless these clueless and amoral control freaks are firmly kicked out of office, things will only get worse. If Richard Tice could become a bit more like Volodymyr Zelenskyy, we might have a chance :-)

all imo

dyor

Good post, Greener.

I echo your final sentence.....

GL

Correction: re "the terms agreed with a 2nd FO partner would be likely to result in JOG being able to retain a bigger slice of the pie (so to speak) when securing a full carry on the remaining 62.5% it needs to cover"...........

............I meant 37.5%

Re the speculation about whether or not Neo wanted the lot (I doubt they did - it's perfectly normal to have 2 or more JV partners in a project of the scale of the GBA) there IS a scenario that would have made it worthwhile, after the 50% FO to NEO, for JOG to wait a bit before signing up another FO partner. This would be to have allowed NEO and JOG (as 50/50 partners) the opportunity to agree the final design set-up, ie: the nature of this and - more importantly - the (capital) cost of getting to production.

There was reference in the latest broker updates to the design including either a tie in to an existing rig or (more likely in my view) securing a "second hand" FPSO from somewhere - perhaps a field that's reached the end of its production life and would otherwise see it scrapped. Piecing various bits of inormation together, I'm expecting some kind of news in this regard quite soon.

It would make sense to me for NEO (with all its cash availability and profit that would otherwise be taxed at 75%) to source and pay for the relevant equipment, then perhaps rent it out to the JV. In these circumstances, what JOG would have to offer to a potential 2nd farminee would potentially be better than it was able to offer NEO, who would have been contemplating capex of (say) $1bn when they agreed their farm in. Were capex to reduce to (say) $800m, because there was a considerable saving on a "second hand" FPSO, then the terms agreed with a 2nd FO partner would be likely to result in JOG being able to retain a bigger slice of the pie (so to speak) when securing a full carry on the remaining 62.5% it needs to cover.

I can't see any reason why NEO, in the spirit of partnership, wouldn't want to help its new partner secure the best deal possible with an incoming 3rd partner (which is likely to be much bigger than JOG). It wouldn't harm NEO.

Ref JOG selling out to NEO (or anyone else) at this stage of proceedings doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe after FDP approval when everything, including finance through to decomissioning 20-30 years down the line and that much closer to production, a sensible offer might emerge. But after 8 years of enterprise and hard work with only one thing in mind and the job incomplete?? No thanks.

Einbert, you say: "The problem, as I see it , is 12.5 % of what? Until we know this, it is difficult to value the stock". I agree, but what I'm working on is worst case scenario (JOG retains 12.5%, although I don't think this will happen). I'm also working on 100mmboe, opex of $15pb, BC at $75pb and 30kbpd production for 330 days a year. 30000 x 330 x 60 (net) x 0.125 = $74.25m. That's JOG's profit before tax per annum (until pressure starts to decline). For argument's sake, let's assume someone would pay 3 years PBT to buy JOG. That's c.$223m, or £178m. Divide by 35m shares (fully diluted) = 508p per share. JOG's 12.5m of reserves? $18pb.

FinnCap says 525p.

Lots could go wrong. Or right.

dyor

...........great minds and all that (ha ha) - I must have been typing mine when you made your post, Einbert.

I'm told Stockholm in June is the place to be..........the Canaries too by all accounts. Anywhere but GB I'd have thought.....

..even if JOG were to be unable to sign a 2nd FO partner to take (say) a 30% interest in the GBA licences in return for a 37.5% carry to first oil (leaving JOG with a fully carried 20%, JOG will still end up with 12.5% - fully carried - by virtue of the FO agreement it signed last week with NEO Energy - and to which the very clever market (made up of a lot of clueless, short-term traders looking for a quick buck) atrributed no value whatsoever. A (very) few nervous holders who've cashed in shares this morning (4k in total) for reasons best known to themselves have given the MMs the opportunity to reduce the bid by another 5p (3% of market cap). This is seemingly now a daily occurrence.

Existing holders who aren't wetting themselves can't be expected to take up the slack by continually increasing their holdings. They understand it's now only about patience and see the inexplicably low SP as a huge buying opportunity. But this doesn't mean they can find the cash, or indeed move even more towards an "all the eggs in one basket" scenario. Ref "patience", it's not as if we haven't shown enough of this over the years as various events (including mishaps) have failed to produce the mythical "increase in shareholder value" certain directors have assured us we're getting. Time continues to pass and none of us is getting any younger. This share used to be fun to own, despite the "big dipper" nature of the SP. At least major events were well rewarded. Alas no longer.

I know there's more information to come that will make JOG more appealing to more traditional investors (inc the odd institution) but surely there's enough info there now (with the backstop in place that guarantees JOG is fully-funded through to production) to make JOG attractive enough for a few new people to buy into at around 25% of fair value according to at least 4 decent analysts?

We also know that the deceitful intentions of both main UK political parties have made the UK O&G sector toxic to investors, but JOG is not among the companies that are paying the ridiculously high rates of tax the t.wats Sunak & Hunt are deceiving the dim electorate into believing are "windfall taxes". JOG provides the means for tax-paying companies like NEO Energy to avoid these unfair taxes altogether as it has the infrastructure plans in place to achieve this laudable objective, even if it means NEO (and JOG when it becomes income-producing) are sentenced to paying over the majority of their profits to politicians to buy votes from Britain's failures.

I was delighted to find an addition to my armoury in regard to Dunning Kruger..........this latest can be applied to many different types involved here: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/generation-stupid/

dyor

Https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/whos-on-board-for-greta-thunberg-month/

Https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/whos-on-board-for-greta-thunberg-month/

Https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/whos-on-board-for-greta-thunberg-month/

.........And they call Boris a liar. He's not alone

dyor - then siusa

"One of the North Sea’s biggest oil and gas producers is being sold to Italian giant Eni in a $4.9bn (£3.9bn) deal after bosses warned that the UK’s “poorly targeted” windfall tax threatened new projects.

The deal will see Eni pay $2.6bn for Neptune Energy, while Norway’s Var Energi – which is also controlled by Eni – will take over the British company’s sites in the Norwegian continental shelf for another $2.3bn.

Neptune’s German business will continue to be run as an independent company, owned by its current shareholders.

However, the takeover represents the exit of the company’s current owners from the North Sea........in the past year, Mr Laidlaw has repeatedly warned that the Government’s windfall tax was making oil and gas projects in the North Sea less attractive to investors".

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/23/north-sea-oil-giant-deal-windfall-tax-warning/

Well done Sunak, Hunt and of course Keir Stoma (just to ensure there's no prospect of the treachery ceasing when the current liars get kicked out). I use the term 'liars' because they continue to claim that what the UKCS upstream producers are being robbed of in tax is because of their windfall gains, when the 75% tax rate is applied to all profits earned, no matter how small these might be. Plus of course they're targeting the wrong companies. Upstream producers benefited from the Ukraine hostilities for a few months only, before oil and gas prices fell back to pre-invasion levels.

In simple terms only (because forward contracts entered into are based on prices forecast to apply at different times in the future) the downstream players - principally energy supply companies and petrol forecourt operators - have to be the ones that have gained the most. It is the energy supply companies that have issued the bills the media is claiming are multiples of what they were before hostilities began. And the high prices continue, when we know the prices they pay for the energy they supply to their customers fell back to pre-invasion levels by Oct 2022 (oil) and Dec 2022 (UK natural gas). Check out the graphs: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas

The situation re the forecourt operators is less clear, although it does seem they took a while to reduce prices from their peak: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-road-fuel-prices.

Why not "windfall tax" all the above - they're the ones charging the high prices to the bleating masses.

No-one connected to the upstream industry would have complained about a genuine widfall tax. Trouble is it would only legitimately have lasted 6 months at most and Greta, plus all the cretins who don't realise oil is used in about 6000 products sold every day, hate the producers. No votes lost there, then. UK Natural Gas was trading today at about 80p per therm. When Ukraine kicked off it was around 220p and it spiked at about 640p end of August 22.

And they call Boris a liar. He's

.........all I can think is that no-one believes the North Sea is worth investing in with the Conservative cretins in office and the prospect of Stoma's commies going on to finally destroy Britain..........

I have always seen risk with JOG but I truly never even considered a democratically elected Government deliberately wrecking our country.............

A fully funded project, with JOG carried on 20-25% of in excess of 100mmboe of 34°API slc in one of the UKCS's best postcodes, scheduled for production (JOG's share, say, 7kbpd) in 2 to 3 years - and it's worth £60m? $3 per barrel?

Exceedingly silly - even taking lowlife politicians into account

jmofwiw

dyor

CHF - I don't think Jersey Petroleum Limited is a "petrol outfit" in the sense you imply.

Its principal activity is oil exploration. See Note 20 on page 67:

https://wp-jerseyoilandgas-2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2023/05/AR-20221.pdf

Not sure there's much to read into the group structure. My guess is that it's at least partly tax driven. I'm not clever enough to work out the rest - maybe someone else is??

Not much to discuss here whilst waiting for the "probably around the end of June" teaser about legal completion of the NEO farm out. Should oil the slope for a daily decline in SP until the announcement gets it back to where it was when it all started.........

damrayfl

..........unless there's a 7am RNS, tomorrow's AGM won't bring anything that's new. No doubt the usual assurances will be given, but it would appear the market wants more than assurances/expectations - it wants clear validation of the GBA project. Legal sign-off of the NEO FO agreement would be a positive start

jmofwiw

dyor

Nous also means "our" in French (eg chez nous - our chez) . I tend not to use this spelling of the word when used in the context: "commercial nous" in case it confuses people (particularly if they're partly frog). OK - I've broken the rules. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88

"chacun à son goût" je suppose (nasty thing - gout - I'm told; hope you don't suffer from it).

Greener - looks like a case of commentator's curse.............ref: "Well that seller has plenty of opportunity to sell into this rally and isn't.........

let me complete that for you:

"Well that seller has plenty of opportunity to sell into this rally and isn't........................missing the opportunity to do so in spades".

Warren Buffett advised: "be greedy where others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy". Trouble is the LTHs in JOG are already full up and can't just keep on finding more to buy at insanely low prices. JOG has to find serious backers - and generally these would be institutions (or maybe a few more HNW individuals). But institutions always want certainty - some at least - not just JOG's word that everything in the garden is rosy and all is going according to plan.

Why didn't JOG ask NEO or its owner (HitecVision) to comment when the Farm out was announced on 6 April? Something to the effect: "we're really excited about the prospect of entering into a JV agreement with this amazing small cap that's found a way of producing API 34° oil with a carbon footprint of 1 or 2 kilos per barrel, when everyone else's is 24 kpb"......we see great things ahead etc". At least that would have been a positive endorsement from someone other than JOG's Mr Benitz. It might not have been his fault, but I recall he's the same AB who told people in the very early days that JOG was going to major on acquiring late life interests (with good tie back arrangements) in producing fields, to take advantage of what JOG believed would be recovering BC prices. Exploration?? No way. Then, when E&D had become the order of the day, there was the dry hole at Verbier (main drill) after a long period of farm in, OGA approval, mobile rig selection etc etc - it all took more than 2 years. Which was then followed by the sidetrack success. Then the failed appraisal drill after patient shareholders had waited a year or more for it to happen. That sent the SP off a cliff. Talk about a roller coaster.

Then all the shenanigans with the Welsh PoS who picked up 10% for buttons at 50 or 60p a pop before steadily dumping them without notifying the company when the SP picked up again after JOG won the Brent licences. I can't swear now to the exact order of events. All I know is that LTHs have been among the most patient it is possible to imagine, given all the uncertainty throughout. I genuinely think there are a lot of potential investors who have followed JOG's story but who might be thinking: "how do we know it will be any different this time?"

More certainty is needed - via external validation of what JOG has told us and is claiming about the future. It isn't rocket science. imv a chance was missed to get JOG's newly announced JV partner to endorse the: "Andrew Benitz, CEO of Jersey Oil & Gas, commented:...." at the end of the 6 April RNS. This doesn't show much 'nouse' (sp?)

Smarten up please

dyor