Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Personally, I think he will be. There is quite a history relating to the two companies getting together - Sir John Browne at BP was really keen on a merger. And without a CEO any company is slightly more vulnerable to a predator. Or the route to US valuations might be taking over a US Oil & Gas company!
FD - I don't think that is the full picture:
https://www.nationalgas.com/land-and-assets/landowners-occupiers-and-grantors
It's a great pity if we cannot think of any alternative use for a national "airtight" pipework infrastructure, that virtually covers the length and breadth of the country.
How much has been spent on Broadband fibre rolling out, in capital allocation & precious time. The gas pipework infrastructure has probably been better maintained than the water distribution infrastructure. We might even with development get rid of some of the electricity pylons that blight the countryside. The wayleaves for development across the whole gas pipeline infrastructure alone are worth a fortune!
Sir John Harvey Jones of "Troubleshooter" fame , used to say that business was about slaying your favourite children." Wael Sawan is starting to look more and more like the activist investor within. In recessionary, inflation-blighted, interest tightened economies, with cost of living shackled world populations, a cash rich company like Shell is overwhelmed with choices!
I am hugely disappointed in the market response to the launch of an essential new product, that has been a fundamental requirement of Darktrace's product range from the first days of the Cloud. A 1% increase in the share price indicates that the market itself is completely unconvinced and underwhelmed by this new offering.
I would really like to be wrong, not least because I have a heavy bet on Darktrace eventually coming good. But I do not justify any losses so far by filling myself with groundless optimism or irrational exuberance.
Generally if it has a furry coat, walks like a dog, and barks like a dog, it generally is a dog! But, every dog has its day & hopefully Darktrace will! So, when Darktrace's Board distract themselves from just operating the newly minted millionaire factory, who knows! They are in the right place at the right time, but growing at snail's pace!
The markets response to the announcement relating to what you seem to view as being the product of the century, taking the cyber-technology world by storm, is for the share price to creep forward around 1%. A resounding damp squib response - the proof of the product will be in the "increased" sales. The product has probably been rushed forward, to counter the falling share price. In truth it is probably barely through POC, UAT, etc.
What you completely fail to grasp is that the announcement of this product a few hours ago is absolute confirmation that this cloud product did not exist previously! Yet your analytical "skills" seem to be forming the argument that it has been around as long as Darktrace! It is actually incontrovertible proof that the product is available from today going forwards, and that the product did not exist previously! Give yourself a few years to consider this and you might, with a lot of luck, reach the obvious conclusion! I am only saying "one" might as there is no guarantee!
Obviously a chimp has taught you to copy and pastes. Darktrace informed investors of the launch of this product by RNS at 7.00am this morning i.e. 3 hours 22 minutes ago. Neither this so far unproven product nor Prevent w ere in place a decade ago. My statements were based on Prevent being an extremely late arrival to the party.
You are a smart guy, I would guess you might have a braincell because you realised Priti Patel had left office 6-months previously when I informed you of this! Good luck with investment you will clearly need it! I cluelessly made a six-figure gain last year & completely tax-free in an ISA! How are you doing?
Losestanley - How much has Darktrace grown its customer base over the last 3-months? Please tell everyone your version so that they cam see how far your view deviates from the stark facts. If you went to school did you take in even one of the maths classes!
With a customer base of 9000 what percentage of new customers does 126 represent over a 3-month period? Allocating a resource of 1200 + sales and marketing staff, what is the cost of customer acquisition? New customers are NOT tumbling over themselves to buy that many new Darktrace products at the moment!
After the latest quarterly results the SP reception was to go into freefall, you need to ask yourself who is clueless! And who consistently insists on talking vacuous, shallow, unsubstantiated drivel! Surely they have facts in the Welsh dictionary as well - look it up!
Https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/exclusive-shell-cuts-low-carbon-111636672.html
"Gremlin after gremlin" is a very appropriate description of Darktrace's roadmap.
There is a very loyal fanbase on this thread, the vast majority of whom are relatively clueless about the Cyber Security
sector beyond it being necessary. Almost unanimously any company buying a cyber technology product wants to prevent any malicious intrusion into its IT systems in the first place, not deal with the intrusion after it has damagingly already taken place, with all the expensive remedial action (in time and resource) necessary to rectify the situation.
Prevent was a very late arrival to Darktrace's product range. But Darktrace's origins were at the BBC analysing internal usage of systems rather than external threats.to the IT systems.
The same clowns appear to be out in force again on this thread informing any investor stupid, or sufficiently mathematically challenged that all the fundamentals are in place with Darktrace. Probably virtually everyone will agree that the Darktrace share price is all about growth or lack of it.
The recent results showed that over the latest 3-months reported on there were 126 new customers. So, over that 3-month period how many new customers have been attracted to Darktrace's product range as per each marketing and sales employee at Darktrace - bearing in mind that there are at least 1200 of them!!!
Compared to the previous 3-months period there were an additional 126 new customers, taking the total customer base to 9,000. Therefore if you take 126 & divide it by 9,000 minus 126, you have the increase in new customers, when comparing the last two 3-month periods. For those capable of working out this sum, the answer is quite stark! Unfortunately, new customer on-take is virtually stagnant & an extraordinarily high percentile of Darktrace's staff are being employed to "achieve" this. Think in terms of cost of customer acquisition!
Then compare this with competitors using actual figures rather than hyperbolic conjecture. There is no surprise that the SP has fallen, like the Yo-Yo it is. Darktrace has to prove it is a growth company again!
There are massive benefits to be accrued from judicious mergers:
Benefits of scale, greater power in the marketplace, cost and replication savings, complementary product range, opportunities for rationalisation of brands product range etc, increased depth of each aspect of vertical integration, Increased market capitalisation to bolster defences against activists or aggressive takeover approaches, Greater opportunities to opportunistically address winning renewables strategy at scale, greater opportunities for oligopolistic exploitation of market opportunities! To only scratch the surface!
Shell has just signed off contracts with Quatar Energy for 27-years LNG supply - quite a demonstration of Shell's commitment to oil and gas:
https://www.euro-petrole.com/qatarenergy-shell-sign-27-year-lng-supply-agreements-for-up-to-3-5-mtpa-to-the-netherlands-n-i-26184
Oops!
The start of the last post was meant to state that the one-third recent drop in Deltic's share price, might be largely attributable to Shell reviewing & analysing literally every contract that it has. Essentially it will not matter that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, what will matter is how fast Shell will get there, and the rate of return!
If Deltic gets through this review, I will probably buy more shares, because the analysis will have been done more thoroughly by Shell than I could ever hope to do.
Https://www.standard.co.uk/business/shell-cuts-hundreds-contractors-ruthless-shakeup-ceo-wael-sawan-oil-gas-b1114869.h
Shell CEO - "Absolutely committed to upstream’: Shell chief executive Wael Sawan reveals ruthless focus on most profitable assets."
https://www.upstreamonline.com/finance/-absolutely-committed-to-upstream-shell-chief-executive-wael-sawan-reveals-ruthless-focus-on-most-profitable-assets/2-1-1467502
Boyo - I completely agree that you qualified using "Amazing" as a descriptor, but together with you recently joining the Optimists Club of Great Britain and your news that electricity has finally reached Wales, I don't think I will be alone in becoming a little unsettled!
I always look om your posts as a breath of cold hard facts, invariably well reasoned common-sense, backed up by graphs! I am all for the optimism, but don't want your posts to change direction.
What an amazing thing to say Boyo - that we are heading for £30 +. I completely agree & I think it is likely to be driven in part by financial calendar announcements: 3rd Quarter results on the 2nd November & going Ex-Dividend on the 16th November.
I think the biggest short-term SP driver will be the Israeli invasion of Gaza though, with the threat of Iranian inspired oil tanker-napping & seaborne drone attacks in the Straits of Hormuz, together with the concerns about the conflict spreading, issues over a possible buffer-zone, humanitarian concerns, the protracted nature of the conflict & ultimately the development of an exit strategy!
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-endgame-no-sign-post-war-plan-gaza-2023-10-18/
If investors accept that there is $1 billion + as Deltic's share of Pensacola's recoverable riches in oil alone.
Let's assume that Deltic has a market capitalisation of approximately $30 million, and Shell can find the loose change to pay its 70% of the drilling costs. Deltic then has to pay 30% of the costs including a drilling rig lease which is $300,000 a day, so Deltic's 30% of this equates to around $90.000 a day.
Lets say that rig lease costs per annum attributable to Deltic are in the region of $90,000 x 365 days in a year, So lets call this $33 million a year (actual $32,850,000 per year. Lets assume there are 100 workers earning $100,000 a year each. Around $10 million a year. Plus pipeline and transportation costs - essentially hooking up to a pipework system that already exists in the vicinity say $7 million..
So Deltic might hypothetically have drilling rig costs of $33 million, labour costs of $10 million, say pipework and transportation costs of $7 million a year (if of course you accept they might "discover" the already proven reserves).
So, Deltic needs a guesstimate to find finance of at least a $1 million a week to fund their share of the costs of exploitation of Pensacola plus accommodation and sandwich costs for the workers!
Cuckoo - how long do you consider it will take to drill down to the known reserves? Do you think that exploiting the reserves at Pensacola is going to bankrupt Deltic? Can Deltic manage to obtain a gross margin contribution by exploiting Pensacola? If you think Pensacola might prove profitable, when do you think Deltic will reach break-even point, and what would your forecasts of profitabilty/ losses over the next 5-years? How would Deltic's management manage to lose the remaining $950million in value from the exploitable reserves?
Would the 66% of Pensacola's riches which are gas have any influence on Deltic's prospective profitability?
Certainly the story-line will be consistent whoever the source at Deltic - they are just going to parrot their Board agreed lines to take - for instance stating "actively" & maybe monetising Pensacola & Selene, realistically they have little else to monetise & it this information is already in the Public domain!
This seems to be a touch of the elephant in the room that everyone does not want to talk about. Realistically Deltic needs financial surety to move forward. Are they talking to banks etc - of course they are.
Deltic need to clarify/calm the situation: something along the lines of they are in advanced discussions that will determine the speed with which they will exploit the riches of Pensacola - reminding stakeholders what Pensacola is worth.
It may even be that because Shell are in the driving seat they are forcing the pace on developing Pensacola, thereby pushing Deltic hard to keep up. There are significant brownie points for Shell in getting new flows of oil and gas from the North Sea quickly - i.e. there is an election in a years time! Also any issues raising additional finance now, will prospectively gift Shell a better deal if they step in particularly at this SP.
This may be a ploy on Shell's part to take a bigger stake in proven reserves. Regardless, my tip would be don't play poker with Wael Sawan at Shell