Member Info for GreyPanther

The UKOGL website contains some useful well info, in particular about the Kirkham Abbey & Cadeby reservoirs at and around WN. The full details of WN-A2 haven't been released yet, but we know from various RNS that the Kirkham Abbey was 65m thick in that well. However the Kirkham Abbey was much thicker in WN-1 (82m) and at Crawberry Hill (which was drilled unsuccessfully in 2013, and is a long way to the west) the KA was much thicker, at 141m. So we can probably assume that the KA formation thins as you go east. It's a bit different for the Cadeby, which appears to be more consistently developed across PEDL 183. We don't know how thick the Cadeby was in the A2 well, but at Crawberry Hill it was 34m thick and it was a very similar 33m at WN-1. So, if the Cadeby is probably just over 30m thick in our area. This suggests to me that it's not much like a reef. So, how thick will it be in the B1 well? Answers on a post card anyone?

Technically speaking, the B-1 well is regarded as an appraisal well. So presumably a successful result in the Kirkham Abbey Formation (depending on how much oil it contains and how much is in the gas column) would presumably only confirm what's already known or perhaps hoped for. A positive result in the Cadeby Formation, which is still at the exploration stage in my opinion, would be a huge plus, but I'm not holding my breath for it. How do other
investors see it, I wonder?

Speaking as a former geologist, I'd say both Wick and Colter were serious disappointments. That's why I've previously said on this BB that I don't much like our investment in Corallian. That's only a personal view, even if Corallian is being run by the world's greatest technical team. They may be excellent, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, IMHO.

Hi mixster. What makes you think "Schlumberger crew hopefully spud 1st week Sept"? I don't disagree with your suggested date. The spud date could even be in very late August (IMHO). It all depends on when the conductor pipe is set and cemented, and the big rig finally arrives. I'm not certain who the drilling contractor will be, possibly it'll be another Marriott rig, but I really don't think the Schlumberger crew will be drilling it. Aren't they a logging company? ATB, GP

Anyone else noticed that RBD are up by 24% today? I assume they are only catching up after being fairly static for a while. But an interesting indication of what can happen once the wind catches the sails.

Hi mixster. I don't think your earlier posting is entirely correct. From a fairly recent joint operating agreement I've seen, each partner can do what it wants with its share of the licence, or even with just a small part of it. They certainly don't have to act "as one" in any disposal. There are also no "pre-emption rights" these days. This means that if one of the partners makes a deal with a new party who is not currently on the licence, the other partners no longer have a right to match that deal. This used to happen a lot in the past, and was very frustrating for a potential incoming party. It now seems to have been dropped from most modern JOAs.

Hi RNSTransalator. Regarding Egdon's now suspended Kirkleatham gas field, it was a very small discovery, and probably the only one to produce from the Cadeby onshore - up to now. However, the issues were quite different there. It was known to have less than 5 Bcf of gas, and early water encroachment caused the single producing well to be suspended. I think neither the reservoir itself nor the gas quality were the issues at Kirkleatham, Only a very small amount of gas was actually produced, so it was probably over-optimism by the operator, in my opinion.

Hello Heid. I'm sure you're right, and I too think UJO itself won't be bought out for its WN interest. That's in part because it's Mr B's child,and he probably would not want to let the whole company go. But, regarding WN itself, it seems quite likely to me that any would be purchaser would first approach RBD and / or Rathln with an offer, more likely a proposal and, if the price was interesting, UJO would be invited to be part of the same deal. What would not be wise, IMHO, would be for RBD and Rathln to sell out to a presumably much larger company, but leave UJO with a minority 16.665% interest. The Newco would presumably be in a position to outspend UJO in either an appraisal or a development programme. This could well leave UJO in the same difficult financial position that Humber found themselves in.

Hi Exploration. I'm sure you mean the smell at WN, and not on this board. I realise there's H2S in the Zechstein in many places, but it I believe it only smells of bad eggs when it's in quite small amounts. If it's about to kill you it's usually impossible to smell it, or you'd probably run pretty fast! However, I'm wondering if it might be a mercaptan compound. These also contain sulphur and have an unpleasant rotting cabbage / dirty socks kind of smell. While unpleasant, it's not toxic in small amounts. There was a - possibly apocryphal - story about a complaint made to the EA about the smell during the WN A-2 operations. The complainant said they had to keep their windows shut to avoid it but the EA's investigator advised keeping their windows open to let the stale smell in the house out. Surely that can't be true?

Hi JackDiamonds. I said "in my view" and that's exactly what it is. I don't have any significant issues with our West Newton investment(s), which is why I'm an investor here. But, as well as not much liking RBD's shot at Deltic, I had a look at Corallian's assets in the past, long before RBD took a stake in the company. I have to say that I wouldn't have become involved in those
licences myself. However, the RBD board chose to do so, and with the disappointing results we now see. So my views are mostly technically driven. While RBD does seem to have some very well qualified NEDS, I'm wondering what they do and, perhaps more importantly, just what influence they have on S and S. The latter are our joint chief execs; I don't have to love them. But I am prepared to say why I don't approve of everything they do, from time to time

Hi Rubey. I can't think of an overwhelmingly good reason why Rathlin would want to reverse into / take over Egdon, even if the latter's market cap is currently only about £6 million. This tells you quite a lot IMHO. They could easily do it, but why not selectively farm-in to their best conventional O&G projects at a sensible price. If they could do it this way they wouldn't have to deal with Egdon's many no longer attractive - to me, anyway - shale gas licences.

Hi Uggy100. I can't disagree when you say "there have been lots of tests on the core samples taken from WN & Cadeby ...... but they don't know what the oil API is". It's really hard to give you a sensible answer as I don't have more info than most other PIs, so what I can add is only my speculation. However, Rathlin seem to have taken both a Cadeby core in the A-1well and a Kirkham Abbey core in the A-2 well, as far as I can see, and they've now had more than enough time by now to do a raft of tests. These would presumably have included the recovery and testing of any liquid hydrocarbons within the two cores, so they must presumably have some info about the oil and / or condensate in at least the A-2 well. Small amounts of liquids might possibly have been produced during the previous testing of A-2 but, if they have a sample of it, they haven't commented on it yet, so maybe there wasn't any, or maybe the sample was very small and / or contaminated in some way. Of course, Rathlin might still be unsure if it's black oil or a much lighter condensate even now because the test was terminated early . Significant amounts of either oil or condensate in WN would be great, of course. Rathlin also have the A-2 core from which presumably liquids could have been recovered, even if the well test samples weren't up to much. I'll try to turn to Biscathorpe now: Egdon and UJO's oil API estimate for the Dinantian seems to have been based mainly on oil shows seen in the drill cuttings but it was presumably assisted by the logs. The cuttings samples were later analysed in much more detail by the consultant company APT, who seem to have pulled something of a rabbit out of the hat. That's IMO of course. But to say they haven't found the reservoir yet isn't quite right. They didn't find the Westphalian Sandstone reservoir at Bisc-2, and it was very thin in Bisc-1, but there's a very decent oil column in the Dinantian, aka Carboniferous Limestone. This is not generally regarded as a fabulous reservoir in the East Midlands Basin but perhaps Biscathorpe is one of the few places where it might turn up trumps.

Hi Rubey. If Ellerby and Spring Hill turn into discoveries at some future date, then the whole of PEDL 183, based on Deloitte's CPR figures , could easily be as big as Wytch Farm. The few published maps suggest that they are three separate, but presumably related, structures. So I'm guessing there could possibly be three decent sized fields, rather than just one humongous one that stretched all the way to the coast

Hi Phoebus. For $/bbl or s/Mcf it really depends on just what figures you are looking for. If you want to know what the licence is worth right now, with the two prospects near to WN still unexplored, WN itself only half appraised (and obviously undeveloped) I might be tempted to use only $1.00 per boe at such an early stage, especially as we've not yet seen a flow rate. If it's a value for developed onshore hydrocarbons you want, then the "full cycle economics" that UJO have used for Biscathorpe would be a good place to start. You could use today's $45 oil price less their $18 full cycle cost. However, you couldn't just use the $27 difference as your value, as the oil and gas will be produced over many years. So you would have to discount the future cash flow. Still, as a rough guess, I reckon you could use Uggy100's $10 / bbl for WN's recoverable reserves, but I would suggest not NOT for the oil and / or condensate in place.

Hi Phoebus. I was actually responding to Rubey's comment at 21.35 yesterday where he said:
"Phoebus, Cadeby looks pretty exciting, and could well make this the biggest find EVER in the UK" So someone has said it, and he's not the first. I've previously worked on Wytch Farm, so I thought it might be helpful to provide the WF numbers for comparison. Also, may I suggest that your recovery factors might be a bit optimistic for a Zechstein carbonate reservoir. 30% would be about right, IMHO, for a typical onshore (Westphalian) sandstone. I've been assuming 25% for the liquids and 75% for the gas in the Kirkham Abbey, and it would probably be similar for the Cadeby if the B-1 well works at that level too. ATB.

I'll be very surprised if what we may find in the Cadeby, plus the oil and gas we already know to exist within the Kirkham Abbey, will come close to Wytch Farm. Just for the record, there the total WF oil in place was reported to be more than 1,250 million barrels and the recoverable oil was over 250 million barrels from all three reservoirs, including the very small Frome Clay Limestone reservoir. Still, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

RBD were both opportunistic and amateurish in making their "low ball" bid, in my view, and I don't think they could possibly have been aware of the imminent Selene news when they issued their RNS yesterday. It certainly wouldn't have helped their rubbishy indicative bid. RBD's board doesn't seem to me to be exactly technically driven.I'm guessing that they saw the word Zechstein in one of our RNSs and on the website , and they said to themselves "maybe we can get another Zechstein project similar to West Newton on the cheap". Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me. But at least they are gone .... for now anyway.

Hi Rubey, Ditto here. What can S and S have been thinking about, and why hasn't our SP bounced back a bit, I wonder? Are we expecting more nonsense / bad news? I certainly hope not

Hello Heid. I'm certainly hoping that Mr B won't set his sights on Egdon or Europa as UJO needs their various operatorships and (most of) their licences like a hole in the head. IMHO, of course! Still it could be worse; UKOG and Angus would be even more disastrous.

Hello Heid. I really enjoyed the Pet Shop Boys - just like old times - but I don't think we know (yet) which of the UK onshore players really has the brains and who's got the looks - other than UJO of course! There are two possibly interesting Wressle partners and some other small UK onshore players who, on the face of it, might fit. Their smaller size also makes them seem a suitable takeover target for UJO, plus they seem to be struggling IMHO. But you need to bear in mind that almost all of them are operating companies. I recall that Mr Bramhill saying several times that operatorship wasn't a part of his strategy for UJO. Sme of them also have non-UK assets which wouldn't fit well with UJO's. I should add that unwanted assets can always be disposed of, of course. So, we can dream, but I'm not holding my breath on the merger front, if that's what's on your mind. ATB, GP