Member Info for Dumbly

With HL Divi payment shows as a transaction with both transaction and settle date as today, but not yet credited to the cash account. Maybe needs to go past 1200?

Pete, I wish ENQ with a MC of $250m owned 5% of Equinor with a MC of $65b.

To add about the separation of oil and gas for the EPL, during Covid gas did not dip anywhere near as much as oil, and following the invasion of Ukraine oil doubled in price for a few months and is now back where it was before, whilst the gas went up…60 times higher and is still around double where it was before the invasion. The gas-heavy producers have had and have a far better deal at the expense of the oil-heavy producers. Not that I would want division between the gasier and oiler producers, but not only would a separation of oil and gas for the EPL create an interim investment encouragement in the NS, but it would also be fair and right a wrong. Unfortunately, tho, fairness and logic seems to count for little.

Hit, at current oil prices just separating oil and gas would be a massive change to the EPL as 2 quarters with an average oil price below the ESIM threshold would, according to current EPL conditions, mean an immediate and permanent end to the EPL (for oil). I can’t see such a separation happening before a successor fiscal regime is announced but, as said, it would be a neat way to offer encouragement in the meantime before the new fiscal regime is introduced.

As we know, for the EPL to be removed BOTH oil and gas average prices have to be below the ESIM threshold for 2 consecutive quarters.

The EPL's oil (Brent I assume) threshold for 2025 is $76.12. Brent for Q1 and Q2 2025 will be below this average (need to double check the figures for Q1). For gas it's unlikely the average price will "ever" be below the threshold. An uncontroversial and easy first step to encouraging investment in the North Sea would be to separate oil gas with regards to the EPL. This is one of the industry's request, and is something which could be done straight away and, I assume, without a "fiscal event". This way, at least for oil, the EPL would be removed without Labour (RR) breaking their word and "actively" removing the Windfall tax; it would fall away for oil because the market conditions were met for it to be removed.

"11 schools have installed solar panels, saving £175,000 per year". I'd love to see the cost/benefit analysis to include the amount and value of electricity generated and all the costs; so for materials. installation, operation/maintenance/repairs/replacement. Maybe the purchase and installation cost was not considered as paid by GBE?

"The failure of the climate movement isn’t just political or scientific—it’s philosophical. At its core is a reductionist mindset: isolate one culprit, pursue one goal, rally around one fix. Fossil fuels became the villain, CO₂ emissions the metric, and renewables the savior—embraced more for narrative simplicity than system reality. Missing was any serious reckoning with energy, complexity, ecological limits, or human behavior. If fossil fuels caused the problem, then renewables must solve it. Doubt didn’t fit the script.

Reductionist thinking led to energy blindness—and that blindness doomed the climate movement. Its advocates still don’t grasp that electricity makes up only a small slice of total energy use for a reason: its applications, while impressive, are inherently limited. Renewables were assumed to be plug-and-play replacements for fossil fuels. They ignored density, intermittency, scale, and material inputs. They ignored what energy actually does: fueling the machinery of global extraction, transport, manufacturing, construction, and trade—most of which can’t be electrified at the scale modern civilization demands. The entire industrial superorganism runs on a kind of metabolic intensity fossil fuels uniquely deliver. Subtract that, and you don’t just lose emissions—you lose capabilities.

But climate policy never really faced that. It isolated carbon as the problem, treated the atmosphere as the domain of action, and left the civilization it emerged from largely untouched. The public was promised a clean transition. The idea that we could decarbonize without decomplexifying was treated as not only possible, but inevitable"

For the full article: https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-reductionist-delusion-how-we-got-climate-change-wrong/

Romaron, if due to the new world order” Starmer had a similar Damascene moment and followed Carney’s lead, and we live with in hope, then tax credits could end up being utilised sooner. But to use the currently available losses in anything close to a 3/4 year timeframe would need both “big” purchase/s of profitable production and oil price much higher. To note that Canada's oil and gas industry received C$29.6B in subsidies financing in 2024.

Creep indeed. Miliband comes across as messianic (and demonic :)) . He sounds like a US Evangelical TV preacher. Passion in a politician can be good, but beyond a point it betrays the logical argument has been lost so the focus has switched to the emothional. Net Zero has become his life’s work. He can’t allow any doubt to creep in or he, and his arguments, would crumble. Religion indeed. He can’t answer questions in a straight way. Asked what is the biggest risk to realise his objectives he says something like that in 20 years time people say the issues and risks were known but not enough was done. Is this the precursor for something brewing?

If ever there was a reason to enhance the UK’s energy security through extracting indigenous hydrocarbons. What better cover for a completely justifiable major change to energy policy?

Put the other way round, considering the circumstances not encouraging the maximum production of economically viable UK oil and gas would be a reckless compromise of national security.

“Britain is facing “a new era of threat” with drones, artificial intelligence and other technologies changing the nature of warfare more fundamentally than at any other point in history, the government’s strategic defence review is expected to conclude on Monday.

The 130-page document written by three advisers to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and is expected to try to draw heavily on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/31/new-era-of-threat-amid-changing-face-of-war-uk-defence-review-to-warn

The Company is targeting a completion date for the Restructuring as soon as possible, and no later than September 2025. The Company will continue working with all relevant key stakeholders with a view to completing the Restructuring as soon as possible.

https://waldorf-production.com/news/

Even with the Serica deal and Waldorf’s share of Kraken, at current oil prices, no way the current tax losses could be utilised in 3 years. The company knows this very well. Plus, next year another $B or so of losses becomes available.

To use up the UK tax credits in 3 years would require, after, EPL, over $1B profit per year. At current oil price and UK production it would take 15 years or more to use up the tax credits.

We remain focused on delivering a MATERIAL [no longer transformational] UK transaction in the SHORT term, and we are resolute in our belief that our relative advantages, both operational and fiscal, see us ideally placed as a North Sea consolidator."

Https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14748415/DOMINIC-LAWSON-farce-Labour-North-Sea-banning-drilling.html

Also interesting info about Brindex's "call to action" meeting last week.

Some interesting comment about Waldorf over on the Serica LSE page.

I only just got around to a viewing this. Very good. I particularly liked DESNZ’s reply about NESO’s independent report, when they report to… Miliband, and that their plans COULD see a lower cost of electricity and energy bills. 😂 😂 😂.

Which entity in the UK system can really audit independently the claims made by John Constable? The OBR?

The Climate Change Committee's energy transition pathway to net zero in 2050 estimates that the UK will need between 13 and 15 billion barrels of oil equivalent between now and then. Our homegrown oil and gas industry could deliver roughly half of this amount - which is materially more than the estimates which accompany the recent consultation document from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero ('DESNZ'). Delivering on this potential would also bring an economic benefit of £350 billion. The demand is not going to go away, and making the fiscal and regulatory environment impossible for homegrown oil and gas simply increases the amount that we will need to import. This has a triple bottom line of being bad for jobs, bad for communities, and bad for the economy. It is also very clearly worse for the environment, given that the UK North Sea emissions are an average of one quarter those of high emission imports - with new fields one fifteenth the emissions of LNG imports. All of the facts suggest that our industry should be supported by the government.

The retention of first year investment allowances in the Autumn Budget indicated that there are receptive ears in some parts of government, and that people are looking at the facts and not being swayed by an increasingly irrational debate. This is encouraging. Less so is the absence of a government response to the consultation about environmental guidance which closed in early January. When such lack of clarity is added to the uncertainties about licensing and the future tax price mechanism, the result is stalled investment and erosion our world class supply chain capability.

David Latin, Chair of Serica, will deliver the following at their AGM later today. I would expect EnQuest to say something similar next week.

Of course, committing to invest in such growth opportunities will only be possible with an appropriate regulatory and fiscal environment. It is absolutely vital for the future of the UK North Sea that the outcome of the current government consultations is resolved quickly and in a manner that supports a homegrown industry with the potential to deliver significant benefits to the UK for many years to come.

The impact of the inappropriate fiscal environment, and the years of uncertainty, is already taking a heavy toll. Production across the basin fell 5% in 2024, drilling activity is at a record low, 10,000 jobs have been lost, and companies continue to exit the UK North Sea. All of this will reduce tax receipts going forward and, given demand which will not go away any time soon, lost production will have to be imported - imports which are worse for the environment since they involve significantly increased emissions.

Current commodity prices very clearly do not represent windfall conditions, and the tax rate of 78% is entirely inappropriate at a time when the government should be doing everything in its power to boost vital energy security and to support economic growth.

It is so very frustrating to see the UK North Sea industry becoming embroiled in a wrongly polarised discussion about Net Zero. The reality is the UK needs oil and gas and renewables, it is not either/or, and we should be investing at pace in all forms of energy. However quickly the UK proceeds with its transition to an increased share of renewables in the mix, we will require oil and gas for decades to come. North Sea production does not just provide vital domestic energy, it also is the lifeblood for a world class domestic supply chain which includes the very same companies needed to deliver energy transition projects.

Continued...

The hope remains that the various consultations will come together with an announcement covering scope 3 conditions, permitting for existing licences, fiscal policy and, maybe, new licences (the latter, I assume, less important for EnQuest). The deadline regarding a communication for scope 3 conditions was by the end of Spring,

Reeves recently said the Windfall tax will stay. There is wiggle-room with this statement, as a new fiscal regime could (will) contain conditions to account for price spikes above the normal price, whatever the normal is defined as. Seems there are two models being considered, profit-based and revenue-based. I don’t understand the details, but my guess is revenue-based would be better for the independents as it should account for their greater need to hedge than the Majors. The Independents are the ones most in need of help and on which the NS will increasingly be dependent. A split between oil and gas would also help EnQuest.

Something has to give before long.