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DU's NAV calculation
I don't want to shock the board, I haven't sold and I will say I even added recently (which is crazy but there you go). The reason for me is: the worst case scenario is still investible, with a massive upside if Lab back off loopholes.
I believe the project will continue its sprint to FDP. I also believe Neo and Sereca will pay their FDP millions to JOG - sometime in H2 this year, pre-election. People all over (Ping with Orcadian) are planning to spend small amounts (in comparison with project CAPEX, Revs and profits) to create oven-ready (sorry) options to develop fields that would be hugely successful in the right tax regime. This money is stranded in UK regime anyway. The alternative with Neo is basically to shrivel into nothing and HiTech lose their money.
DU's NPV calculation shows JOG's oil unvalued, with cash in bank and tax losses alone valued at this market cap. You will note that NS M&A is a desperate effort to optimise tax losses, rather than an excitement to get new money into UK barmy banana regime.
Unlike pre-farmout, where JOG's value goes to zero on failure, we are already bouncing along the bottom with worst case baked mostly in.
For reasons in my other post, Lab will moderate its stance pre election - and we will finally be released from our grim grinding down.
I'd welcome some critiquing to my post, ideally not in the form of a giant elephant defecation.
I think it depends on the profile of the firm. If you own producing assets, having bought them with leverage (or added to your assets through M&A), you have a finely-tuned model that has been blasted to bits by EPL. Consider - if you have an expensive, moderately producing asset with loads of tax-losses, you are not paying 40% normal corporation tax for O&G. Pre-EPL, you eek out your profit tax-free, minus cost of leverage and decommissioning costs (paid into an escrow account and adjusted for inflation). During the last few years, EPL (not deductable) has cut a big hole in your profits. The cost of leverage has skyrocketed. Inflation has pushed up your decommissioning cost payments. This renders some firms basically bust, and meanwhile you have to ask the regulator to be able to stop producing, a timeline of maybe 2 years! It's basically nationalisation.
If however you don't have tax losses, and you have more profitable fields, Investment Allowance is more critical. GBA is in shallow water, reused infrastructure and should be a profitable, lower cast development. GBA can tolerate EPL at 78% - the asset value just drops to accommodate the yield. However in our case the Investment Allowance is critical as it dramatically reduces CAPEX.
I believe from having talked around, the worst case tax scenario (both EPL increase + removal of all allowances) puts GBA at risk - even then Neo might proceed as what else will they do with the FPSO - instead of modest profit they now scrap it, lose an asset as well has reserves etc. I think some kind of moderation will save the project. As 'loophole' is undefined, it's not a U-turn for Labour to clarify this in a more advantageous way.
Finally - I have had industry friends tell me that if Labour does remove the investment allowance completely, all NS investment other than a bit by BP and Shell (who do it probably to take pressure of their global profits by their HQ nation) will stop. Cambo, Rosebank, pretty much everything. This will be communicated to Labour - I doubt they will want be forced to renege on punishment taxes in order to facilitate high-profile developments that ignorant greenies in our country hate. That is some egg banjo eating.
To address your question more specifically, I don't think you can use the allowance to invest in renewables. I had a look here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/energy-profits-levy-factsheet-26-may-2022
One interesting point is that there are a whole host of deductions (loopholes!). Labour could remove only one deduction and still have 'closed a loophole'.
It would be sadly amusing to see crude prices rise (many have a demand bull case until 2040 - I don't think the developing world ex-china -is going Tesla align with the growth) whilst with little UK production no tax receipts to offset this. Just a little island with a windmill up its @ss
labour mindset:
pre-election
1) say enough pro-green stuff to attract votes and internal stability
2) grab money from any source to max spending (especially the hated o&g sector? two birds)
post election (or as we get closer to reality)
3) projects being pulled, such as cambo, rosebank etc
4) tory epl is already busting value investors that made levered purchases of mid/ late life producing assets - we will start to see bankruptcies etc from independents in coming months says industry mate.
this precipiates
5) job losses en masse, angering gmb and unions in solidarity, make headlines
6) as per zeus, medium term fiscal wrecking ball (don't underestimate how fine tuned budgets are; strip out 5% tax revenue and uk plc has a big problem)
7) massively curtailed spending and optionality in government
they will be working this out now. don't underestimate how ignorant politicians are - they spent 50% of their time just surviving internally, and the rest thinking about what to say externally making them popular. many people on this board are well better informed.
loopholes is not yet defined. lobbying is going on hard and the **** has hit the fan in ns regardless. we will get moderation i think now before the election - projects and thus tax reciepts have, are being, and will be cancelled soon.
the stock must then shoot up. don't be out now.
Why do they need to raise cash? They just got a blast into the accounts of 350k, which keeps them ticking over until FDP (Ideally in the next 12 months). 3m can then tide the management team over until FID. SB doesn't want to dilute himself! He's a big shareholder!
UK fiscal uncertainty may be over emphasised by the stock market. The recent dip in the
JOG share price has coincided with a degree of UK oil and gas tax regime uncertainty. In the
recent UK budget, the Energy Profits Levy was extended to run for a further year, from 2028
to 2029. Prior to this, the Labour party (seen by many as the incoming UK government) had
released a statement proposing an increase in the EPL from 35% to 38%, extension to 2029
(now enacted by the existing Conservative-led government), and the addressing of what
Labour referred to as “loopholes” in the existing UK oil and gas tax regime. It has been
interpreted that these loopholes could refer to the investment uplift allowances in the EPL
regime.
When the EPL was originally brought in in 2022, it was designed with relatively generous
investment allowances (such that, overall, new UK upstream CAPEX investment could attract
up to 91p in the pound of tax relief). This has created a significant incentive for existing UK
producers to invest in new projects – indeed, our modelling estimates that it can increase the
value of a new UK project to an existing producer by up to 61% if tax allowances are able to
be used against existing production. As such, any government watering down of the EPL tax
allowances could impact industry decisions to invest in new projects, including potentially
Buchan.
In our view, the danger of changes to investment allowances may be limited. While we expect
that both the incumbent Conservative government and the Labour opposition are including
the significant benefit to the exchequer from the EPL in their fiscal calculations for the next
five years, we find it hard to believe neither would look beyond this period. Altering tax
allowances could have a more significant negative effect on future UK North Sea projects
and investment than the existing EPL regime (which, for all its faults, is relatively well
designed for encouraging new investment), and this could in turn have an impact on
government fiscal calculations beyond 2029. Damaging the UK oil and gas industry in the
longer term would be economically self-defeating for an incoming Labour government,
ultimately damaging government spending flexibility. This would be a choice that Labour
would have to face up to in government, with potential serious consequences if it were to
degrade UK oil and gas tax allowances. In our view, the move from campaign rhetoric to
implementing policy is more likely than not to see Labour take a moderate stance in practice.
We also consider the fact that 72% of total UK energy supply in 2022 was from oil and gas,
the c.200k well-paid UK jobs that UK oil and gas activity supports, and the substantially lower
emissions from domestic oil and gas production versus most imports (particularly LNG), as
further strong points in favour of a moderate government approach to oil and gas taxation.
We t
Labour must tread carefully on road towards UK’s clean, green future - https://on.ft.com/48i8fOc via @FT
Apologies was trying to post that. In short, if Labour kill the investment allowance you get redundancies like pit closures in 1980s
Maybe they will remove investment allowance but give a huge tax break on jobs, so even things out. Or quietly walk.
But for some it has nonetheless burst the bubble created by Labour’s overtures to win over investors. As one oil and gas executive put it:
Labour has been hawking itself around the City saying we are on the side of business and we want you to invest in the UK — then a few days later they are U-turning.
It’s a bad day for investors in the UK . . . Everything I’ve heard since Friday suggests they are rushing to the exit.
The sector’s backlash against higher taxes is to be expected, yet there is a lot at stake. The UK still gets about 75 per cent of its energy from oil and gas, and efforts to move towards cleaner energy are proving difficult and slow.
I don't believe Neo has committed much capex yet other than the success fee to JOG and operating costs of the project team. I do believe we will see movement on that soon.
Tis an interesting question.
One thing I don't understand, is why someone would pay cash out of retained profits for oil revs, and not simply get a massive tax deduction on CAPEX to say, get incremental oil revs from existing assets. Obviously there is an answer to this and I'm happy to be sh@t on by some of the more experienced posters on this board. It's not enough to be right, it's that others must fail etc.
Another ponderance in my tiny mind is that can a contingent offer be made? Say on FID, or even first oil? Is that a thing in M&A? Take out the management team and essentially you have a financial derivate, so why not? Might be nice to snap off the target now when atmospherics are rubbish.
One thing I'd add is that if we want to see first oil Q4 2026, we're going to need to see activity pretty sharpish. Rig contracts (or at least options) need signing, long lead time items like er, infill tube thingys and errrr 'well heads' need ordering, building etc. These will likely be released by RNS and this must close the value gap? I see no risk from regulator, only a tiny risk from a partner getting cold feet - but these items would confirm that would not be true beyond all reasonable doubt.
Where is an M&A banker when you need one.
Interesting that Orcadian got their farm out away this morning, 350k paid and operator ship transferred in spite of Lab shenanigans.
Decent chance of an RNS that goes 'we are nearly there just given us a few days, everything is on track'
Some clarity of Labour stance on the investment allowance, and some positive news on rig contract options or well-heads getting built will turn this story around.
If Ping had pulled out, an RNS would have come. They are dotting Is and crossing Ts. These things get delayed more often than not. News will come soon. There's no need to do a 'we are ten minutes from our destination ' RNS.
It was mentioned in the past that a reserves assessment was going to be done. I wonder if this is still happening or would boost the SP. Does it allow lending?
Hmm. The point was - if the Tory membership had 2m more sensible members, better leadership choices would be made. You get the democracy you deserve - no one gives a monkeys so we get monkeys
Join the Tory party and have your say. Lack of participation in grassroots is ruining things. 1970s Tory membership was 2m? Now 200k
That was so weird. Thought I'd dreamt about a DU post. Didn't dare say for fear of madness. Good sums DU. Maybe market is discounting project happening due to Labour machinations. Wrong in my view. Apparently Ed is more the mouthpiece for a Green audience, and rabble rousing. Rachel Reeves is closely engaged with industry, will actually be the one who sets the tax. Buchan is billions in tax receipts - Lab will be extremely aware of what they're doing. A bit squeaky bum but I haven't sold a thing.
We need inflows.back into AIM funds for institutions to buy JOG. AIM Fund managers are selling stocks to meet redemptions.