Member Info for GabrielOak

M - if you are short term as in next few months then maybe probably sell BUT this company has a plan and I am not going to miss out on seeing it come through...

On the left of your screen...members section ...inbox

For T&T to move on this requires politicians to have a "Less overall today, for far more overall tomorrow" mentality. That kind of a mentality is a rarity in politicians...however, i consolidate my thoughts with this: We have started a review of the energy tax regime in order to simplify and rationalise the terms of both Production licences and Production Sharing contracts. The main objectives of this reform are to encourage investment in the energy sector and raise the Government's revenue-take Critical areas being addressed are: � Making the Supplemental Petroleum Tax responsive not to price but to underlying profitability; � Extending the Supplemental Petroleum Tax to gas, which is now the country's main petroleum product; � Reconciling and simplifying the fiscal regimes applicable to the exploration and production and production sharing systems; and � Standardising and uniformly applying appropriate royalty rates to all crude oil, condensate and gas. Negotiations between the energy companies and the Government are well advanced and we expect to be in a position to present the new oil and gas fiscal regime before the end of this year. END For me: it is just how crucial the production of cash is for the next 13 months.

Presentation: 29 mins and 50 seconds in...chap with 3 questions. One of those questions concerns the royalty regimes...listen carefully to what Bruce says about the discount rate for SPT: Quoting at 30 mins 34 ish onwards: "The refinery price we get paid is related to a combination of crudes: ...(out here calypso on the east coast) and the product price they get paid for <a range of fuels> that generally trades at 6-8% below WTI. RECENTLY it has gone to 1% to 0% because of the refineries getting flooded in the Southern US where there is no product available, BUT normally it runs at 6-8% below West Texas and that is a tax that is 18% (of Net revs) onshore and 33% (of Net Revs) offshore." In other words...we are firmly in SPT territory now...depending how long "recently" is it is now a quarterly reality that we are in SPT zone. GO

CRL on the money (and on target to be in the money)...Here is the attitude that I think we all need to take: the SPT is not going to get overhauled...The Trinidad gov't needs the money...we will incur taxes. The company can create "insulation" from this tax by upping production considerably (given their fixed cost base...accretion is strong). Trinity is very attractive for its losses brought forward...for years going forward. IF the SPT overhaul goes through then great...don't bank on it. I am sure management is not.

on the other board a bit...that Troll is a nasty little piece of work and I broke one of my rules and engaged with it. CRL, I remain long this company with a lot of shares. I am not too fussed at the moment... I trust the management to make the right decisions to navigate the next year which will be an interesting one. The what if's i mention on the other board are real concerns but I think they are unlikely to all happen...but what if they do! That is life...that is why you have a great management team to get past it. To explain: The company has (approx) 7 mln dollars left to pay off...back owed taxes. They are accelerating payment of this loan back to the BIR and MEEI (Inland Revenue and Energy tax collection point) in order to be able to deal with the Convertible Loan note. It is only once this loan of 7 mln to Trin govt is cleared that they can then pay off the Convertible Loan Notes...in this instance the CLNs are structured as follows: the company is loaned money and in return it guarantees (as best it can) an interest rate which (unless mistaken) is paid at the end of the term...what was loaned was 6.55 mln dollars...with interest what needs to be returned approaches $7.6 mln. If it is not returned by January of 2019 then this money loaned, the "loan note"... converts for the holder to equity struck at 6 pence. This creates a dilution event for the company best measured as a drop in NAV from 33p to about 24p...as there is now a lot more equity out there...93 mln more shares... on top of the long term incentive plan (an extra 30mln shares if 35 p struck...very happy if that happens!) so each pence higher of share price is much more swelling market cap to justify...conversely the company still has a larger value on a much lower share price. It is my understanding that the intention is to get them paid down by the board who are holders of it and by the exec who are not holders of it. There will be wider shareholder fury if the board pushes for conversion when an alternative is available...they are just not those type of people anyway...the big question for me and around prolonged mid 50's oil price is will they have a choice or not if SPT is not overhauled...that is my concern (but i don't lose sleep over it) as I know the guys have a good plan. GO...with finger tips burning after a few hours of posting today!

Plain and simple: More motivated sellers than buyers.

Now we get to see the market's view of the share price...with no sense of pumped up imminent hope...short term holders percolate out...big and small Right now the balance for this quarter is not tripping the SPT...Hat tip to CRL and WWICK for being the only two people (seemingly) to actually comment on this! Everyone else seems particularly intent on correcting trolls (fair enough: need to be corrected) and other issues. Checklist for the next steps: Let's be clear...the SPT overhaul is the next important milestone for the company...anything that smooths away the "step" at 50.01 selling price is appreciated. A fresh calendar year that presses the reset on the reporting. And then the small matter of drilling some strategic new wells in the first half of 2018... Enough liquidity to pay off the BIR & CLN overhangs (for me, with or without some strategic dilution is good) Looking longer term: A good prospective tie up for bigger projects downstream. Wishing all long term holders the fulfillment of the above! GO

Hmmm - I thought it was a little bit lower than that. Will double check.

And an intuitive / logical hedging strategy...

You are such a kidder... For a minute there i thought you had sold 2,300,000 shares in one clip on an accidental request for quote in a name that trades an average volume sub million per day...and all the while the market knowing you were out there as a seller. You nearly had me there!

If we sit here at 55 for 9 months then we are selling oil at 42 bucks a barrel through SPT. if we go down a little (and reset the 3 month rolling average) then we are selling at 50 bucks a barrel. If oil continues to rally then we inch back the form. There is a lot of gamma in this share right now...why? Two things: SPT and CLN’s. If the “step” nature of SPT is removed then great If we cannot generate enough to clear the BIR and CLN’s then dilution will follow (severely) if the CLN’s are converted to equity OR through a less damaging capital raise. Prolonged SPT with no overhaul risks that. I believe The board will do whatever they can to protect their equityshareholder partners. Questions to ask: will trinidad do away with spt? will oil collapse? Will oil stay in the sweet spot or the next door harder to handle SPT zone? will the board do everything they can to not trigger the CLN’s? Can this be done organically without a capital raise? 3 things...spt overhaul, organic creation of cash and/or strategic capital raise. 2018 will tell us how it plays out but my money is on the following: SPT overhaul at precisely the right time, traction on organic growth through overhaul / drilling program, a possible capital raise but I prefer organic...if it is a choice then the board will decide a capital raise ONLY benefits the company as 2c becomes 2p. 35 p a share. I remain 100% long and people can sell, buy or whatever in the meantime. GO

Guys, to answer CRL’s question: there is a small seller out there...I get called occasionally by my broker with market updates. He/she/it has a million or so left to shift (as at 4.15pm yesterday) and is looking for a level to sell at...indicating he does not have more...seeing as this emerged at 19p. Once you have counted 1mln shares traded from Monday morning until whenever then you know he has cleared (unless he reloads or someone else comes in to sell.)...normal market behaviour. CRL...I like you very much and enjoy the humanity in your posts but I really do not think that investing is suited to your anxious personality, and I worry -from the other side of the chat room- that you are interpreting the ordinary machinations of a market to such an extent that it borders on paranoia.

is on the basis that the Trin govt has said that they are going to tax oil companies on profitability rather than with an unmanageable step tax.

AIUI SPT is mitigated by drilling old acreage / onshore / offshore factors etc...in other words there are ameliorating factors so it is not quite as bad as it could be. If the purchase price by petrotrin is above 50.01 for a consistent 3 months then the SPT kicks in on the WHOLE sale amount...which is like dropping the price of oil significantly in one day...with SPT you are better off selling oil at 50.00 dollars than you are selling between 50.01 - to - 63.5 ish dollars. It is a shockingly dumb tax and stifles the Trinidad oil industry. SO, HOW COULD IT BE STRUCTURED: well, how do you define profitability? A conservative company is profitable because it does not blow its money on risky, risky capex...while a a risky company shows no profit...so you might want to introduce something aligned to pre capex profitability...then you might look at banding producers according to what they "should" cost to run according to their peer group. Trinidad needs to define what "making money" means. Some companies won't make money because of being poorly run and bad choices. They might simplistically band against what they know...licenses granted etc / tax returns going forward. They will be doing this to stimulate the oil side of their revenues while making up for it from taxing gas production...so maybe it will synthetically look more like a move from 50.01 to 70 ish dollars where the tax does not kick in on the whole amount but only proportionally above this point...with a metric against peer group profitability...it is the current SPT tax that makes things like hedging such a nightmare. Whatever they do, it needs to be as simple as possible for an overstretched Trinidadian Civil service...so my rambling conclusion is that it just might be the introduction of more Corporation tax bands rather like a uk income tax return...with different bands that are easy to manage. GO

extremely thorough!

NAV 29 Pence!!! "Trinity is trading at one of the sharpest discounts to core NAV in our coverage Universe" Initiates with a buy price target of 33p

have started coverage...

49 ish

Remember: SPT does not kick in unless sale price of TRIN’s oil is above 50.01 for 3 months. Assuming an 8% discount to WTI this equates to 50.01 divided by 0.92 = 54.35 price level.