Member Info for GreyPanther

Hi Fyoz. There would probably be quite a lot of squawking if RBD''s shares went ex-dividend before a big dividend was announced, and not just from those who had only recently bought in. I've never seen it happen with any share I'm familiar with. It would probably be seen as unethical by the FCA (or whatever they are called these days) as it would create a false market, and RBD's directors would probably get their knuckles rapped in a big way. But I love the idea anyway.

Hi there beacon. UJO's £32 million mkt cap certainly seems way out of line with RBD's £40 million, given their respective WN holdings which, I think, dwarfs all the other assets of both companies. However, they shouldn't be ignored. What the relative market valuations may be telling us is that it favours UJO's entirely onshore UK portfolio compared with RBD's rather more widely spread interests. Of course, there could be other reasons, such as the quality of their managements, but I guess the jury is out on that for now.

This morning’s RNS had a great impact on the SP, but I had to read it several times before I was reasonably sure I understood it. I suppose it’s helpful as “green washing” or, even worse, some form of “virtue signalling”, but I would not have expected RBD to engage in this sort of behaviour. I still can’t see why this is the right time to issue such a report, so could someone who knows about carbon intensity explain in layman’s terms please? It also seems that the quality of the information that went into it somewhat vague too - in my opinion of course. I see that the work was carried out by Gaffney Cline, who are a highly reputable O&G consultancy. I also note that they said: “Study parameters were selected from Gaffney Cline`s Global field database as well as specific West Newton factors, including a NOTIONAL development plan and recovery mechanism”. The fact that they have mainly used their own data suggests that there is very little real WN data in the study, and its mainly based on conceptual data. So I’m left wondering why was the work done before we have any real information about the size of WN’s potentially recoverable reserves (rather than what’s currently thought to be in place), or the relative proportions of oil to gas, or a real development scheme with potential production rates, etc? Surely a better time to do this work would have been when we have some reliable oil and gas data from WN, such as the EWT should give us. That event might in only a few weeks time. As you can see, I still live in hope!

Hi there passiton. Can I suggest being very cautious when using quoted Wytch Farm oil reserve numbers in comparison with West Newton. For WN we have only a range of "in-place" numbers so far. At the moment we can only guess at WN's recovery factor and its potential recoverable reserves. That's the case until the well has been properly tested, hence the EWT. I was involved in the W Farm field development in its early years under BP's operatorship. As far as I can recall, the best W Farm reserve figures ever published were 480 million barrels of recoverable oil, with natural gas liquids and gas on top of that. The 480 million was based on a somewhat pessimistic 40% recovery factor which at the time (mid 1990's) indicated about 1,200 million (1.2 billion) barrels of oil in place. To work out relative WF and WN values you need to know what the WF reserves were when any particular deal was done, and also be careful to note whether they were quoting oil in place or remaining recoverable reserves. My apologies this is blindingly obvious.

Hi Mirasol. Who would have thought it? Two RNS today, both positive. That is, if you count the one from UJO who have today relieved Egdon of a difficult partner in the guise of Humber and their 12.5% Wressle interest. So much for my saying Humber were insufficiently capitalised to fund their projects. UJO's RNS indicates that a second Humber asset has bitten the dust, this time at a cost of £500,000. To me this looks like a pretty cheap deal. So what’s left of Humber’s portfolio? Originally there were four / five licence interests: PEDLs 180 & 182 (Wressle), PEDL 183 (West Newton), PEDL 201 (Widmerpool Gulf) and PEDL 253 (Biscathorpe). The sale of West Newton and now Wressle will give Humber £4 million in cash and shares once the Oil and Gas Authority gives its consent, so they won’t be short of cash. Humber will presumably make a tidy profit on the two licence interests they have sold, and both Reabold and UJO have struck very favourable deals, IMHO. I wonder what Humber will do with: 1. all that cash, 2. the Widmerpool Gulf licence, much of which seems to be in shale gas territory, and 3. the much more promising Biscathorpe licence where they are presumably still in default, and may have already lost their 20% interest. Could they get into anything else with Egdon or Union Jack? My guess is not, after the way they (Humber) behaved by not paying their way at Biscathorpe. I can’t really see many companies wanting to do business with them. But who knows, especially when "cash is king"?

Well Done Mr B. UJO’s acquisition of Humber’s Wressle interest looks really good to me. At £500,000 for 12.5%, it’s only £40,000 per 1% up front. If you compare this with UJO’s booked costs for their existing 27.5%, you can see what I mean. According to the recent accounts, UJO had spent about £2.43 million on Wressle by the end of 2019 , and presumably a little more since then. This works out at about £88,000 per 1% (plus a bit), which is more than twice the amount for each 1% that Humber are being paid. Of course, there is still £1.04 million to pay on Humber’s 12.5% and another £1.04 MM on the 12.5% interest that UJO bought from Celtique in a related deal in June ’18, when 5% also went to Egdon. However, the total £2.08 MM total is only payable by UJO when Wressle comes on stream. The RNS says this could be funded by some kind of debt financing, rather than by issuing more shares, which makes me feel even better about it. So, a good deal all round IMHO.

Thanks Mirasol. I too found Humber's website to be out of date and incomplete so, like you, I went to Companies House website and realised they were only a two man, actually father son, private outfit. Looking at their latest published annual accounts (Dec '18) they were then wildly under-capitalised to fund all the projects in which they were about to invest. So their default at Biscathorpe, which is probably of most interest to Egdon holders, was perhaps inevitable. Now they have sold their West Newton interest to Reabold they may be better funded, or they will be as soon as they receive the OGA's consent to the deal. Maybe this will mean they can hang on to Wressle, but they must be spending there too, and the invoices will be arriving by the month, I suppose. So that interest might soon be gone too, which will leave them with next to nothing. Not that I care much about Humber. It's Egdon I'm really interested in, and how the Humber default has affected them.

Hi Andy. A very easy way to start is by clicking on the "RBD Live RNS" button at the top of this page. It will show you what Reabold have to say for themselves and should have been thoroughly checked by their brokers before it was released. As Manwell02 said: "Don’t listen to anything anyone says on these boards". Except what you feel is reliable info / advice, of course. You could also have look at what's being said on Union Jack Oil's LSE bulletin board. There's a lot of tripe spouted there, but they are in the same UK West Newton project as Reabold, albeit with a much smaller interest. You may occasionally find the odd gem there amongst the dross. And good luck with your investments.

Thanks Siliv and all who pointed out my earlier mistake. After all this time I shouldn't assume that people will write exactly what they mean on a BB.
Back to UJO, I think those UKOG shares are still owned by UJO. They can't be worth very much these days, and perhaps it wouldn't have required an RNS if they had been sold. And I can see that UJO's market cap is about £30 million today compared with UKOG's £20 million. Good luck to all, I say.

UJO take over UKOG? Please don't suggest it, even as a joke. Why would UJO want to be an operator, especially of a licence in the stockbroker belt?

Hi there Mirasol. Shall we agree to give Justin Welby and the C of E a rest, though it was fun while it lasted? With regard to Wressle, I keep wondering if it's in safe hands with Humber after their West Newton sale. I'd have thought that Wressle, being relatively close to production, might be an attractive sale proposition if Humber are short of the readies.

A Parta RNS next week? I sincerely hope so. Is that just a guess based on a few new facts?

UJO have two remaining partnerships with Humber. There's Wressle, and I think another smaller interest called Burton on the Wolds.

There's another thing worth bearing in mind, IMHO, and that's the 350 million RBD shares (worth about £2.1 million today ) that will end up in Humber's hands. They will be able to sell about a third of these shares as soon as the OGA gives its consent to the deal. Humber once held a huge number of Union Jack shares, for which I think they mostly subscribed cash, and when they sold them in large numbers they pi**ed on the share price. I guess what I'm saying is that it could happen here too.

It's understood that JW's "business acumen" was the clincher with HMG at the time!!

Justin Welby was educated at Eton, amongst other places, so you might assume he had friends in high places when he was made Archbishop of Centerbury

Unlike Justin Welby, I think Mark Abbott was never so blessed as to have been an accountant in former life. I'm pretty sure that I think our current archbishop was once Enterprise Oil's financial controller, or something similar. Maybe he would have made a good CEO at Egdon!

Hi reaction. I certainly agree that the WN licence has several seismic leads on it but I'm a bit mystified by your phrase "Just W/N alone is five times the size of the U.K licence". Could you say more about this please, as I'm not sure what you mean. As far as I can see, WN is located on an unusually large licence and the structure lies entirely within it. I don't think anyone in the know has seriously suggested that the discovery extends offshore , for example, and I hope I'm not splitting hairs here. All the best.

Some of the equipment, and maybe some of people, needed for the EWT may be coming from outside the UK, possibly mainland Europe. There could perhaps be a delay until borders re-open for all truck transport.

Hi vanguard. It was actually NORTH Lincs Council (not Lincs Council) that had to cough up about £400k to the Wressle partners following Egdon's successful appeal. They should never have let it come to this, but they ignored the advice of their own planning officers on several occasions.