Member Info for HeadInTheSand

Well of course the delay at Basur-3 will help them drill with greater precision, FFS... but only because they drilled the first hole completely blind.

...all of which begs the question, why didn't they run new seismic before? They've had the licence for months... surely to God they didn't play blindfolded "pin the tail on the donkey" when deciding where to drill first?

And if it was a question (as I suspect it very clearly was) of spudding before the end June licence stipulation, why didn't they simply ask for a deadline extension?

As with most things UKOG, this makes no sense. At all.

Nom, I've been saying the same thing, having also idly worked out the directors' net pay. I came up with a top-end figure of £2,800 as being the absolute maximum amount they'll invest (and that's between them), if they abide by the RNSed terms of the DDSPP.

Mind you, so far at least, they've decided to renege on the stated commitment to start buying from the beginning of July... though why they should do so, when the amounts involved are so teensy is entirely beyond me.

By the way, I only allowed for netting off tax and personal NI contributions. If any of the directors is making pension contributions per month, that ceiling £2,800 figure will be even lower.

Well... I'd agree that UKOG has a history of being able to "prove" that projects are "viable" (to the extent that it has been able to raise funds from investors against such "proof")...

Unfortunately, when the realities of things start to apply, so far, the company's track record of accuracy on its supplied pre-real world "proofs" has been irredeemably dire. This may well affect its abilities to raise funds for Loxley, should the appeal be upheld - because when seen against a backdrop of what's actually happened with any and all UKOG "assets" to date, who's going to believe another Sando forecast?

One of the interesting questions to have asked Sando - given the fact that UKOG has to date never made profits and instead exists solely on fundraising and debt - would have been this:

What are the total estimated abandonment/making good liabilities on UKOG in relation to its various UK onshore assets and what percentage of those estimated costs does the company have ringfenced and set aside?

I imagine that would have caused some salmon pink squirming.

Hope your timing is better than it turned out to be on ANGS a couple of months back, Will...

However, credit where it's due... over there you were quick to cut your losses once you spotted that you'd not in fact bought in at the bottom of the trough. Which is of course an equally important mindset for those who short-term trade to have.

It was pretty obvious that would happen last month too. UKOG even issued an RNS to confirm this.

Except...

Ozzy, given your permanent "everything's rosy" opinion, would you care to come up with any justifiable reason as to why the board has point blank reneged on its categoric and RNSed commitment to buy into the company?

Why in your opinion does the board very obviously think it's a bad idea to put their own money in, despite having guaranteed to regularly do so - and starting from a month ago?

It's a simple question... I and I am sure many others would be interested in a simple answer.

Oofy, nothing would surprise me at this stage.

That'd be one way to get any already pitifully minuscule commitment to buy shares as a percentage of net monthly salary down to zero, wouldn't it?

What I just don't get is the brazenness of this? I mean, the gang of four on the board clearly think that shelling out (an absolute max of only £2,800 per month of value between them, don't forget - that's what the terms of the DDSPP are, according to the 28th may RNS) is a really really bad idea, from a personal wealth point of view. They must therefore expect the SP to head further south - that can be the only reasons why they're refusing to stick to their commitments and buy in - and yet they're busily doing everything they can to get 3rd party investors to shell out more and stick more in.

It's hard to come up with a more blatant example of "Do as we say, not do as we do"... the board clearly has no faith in the prospects of the company it's running, despite what it tries to get others to believe.

Tankhill, the unequivocal commitment for the BoD to buy an admittedly tiny amount of shares (max. £2,800 of value per month between all four of them as per the expectation of terms outlined in the DDSPP) every single month starting with first purchase on July 2nd was released to the market by official RNS on 28th May this year.

As you should know, any director purchase, sale or share transfer of shares is mandatorily notifiable - they have to release such info to the market, if any of these actions have taken place, regardless of quantities/values involved, and they mandatorily have to release such info within a few working days of it having happened..

To date there have been no such notifications - and by now, we should be being told of the second monthly share purchases by the UKOG board.

Therefore, it is abundantly clear that for whatever reason, all of the UKOG board have so far decided to renege on their RNSed commitment to purchase shares.

This raises several separate issues. First, there seems to be clear contempt from the UKOG board for its long-suffering PIs. The directors have decided to default on their commitment to buy into the company they're running - even to the tune of the pathetically small amounts the announced scheme commits them to (between 5 to 10% of net monthly salary... so that's at least net of tax, NI and any pension contributions)

Second, such a barefaced decision not to abide by an officially RNSed commitment hardly increases the credibility or trustworthiness that the UKOG board will be viewed with.

Finally and even with a "light touch" regulated market like AIM, there are serious questions to be answered around an AIM-listed company categorically announcing to the market that it guarantees to do something regularly, putting a hard date on when that regular something will start... and then deciding to utterly ignore and thus contradict the information it has officially released via RNS.

It'd be hard to imagine a bigger red flag, frankly.

Ozzy... you're "loving" a 15%+ fall? How long have you had these clearly deeply ingrained masochistic tendencies?

Perhaps time to hang up your much-stained "I heart Stevie" tee shirt and take the poster of his grinning and obscenely well-paid mug off your lonely bedsit wall, no? I hate to break this to you, but he's really not your friend - nor any other real PI's for that matter.

Holy crap! For the Ocebot to rebel against its programming and change its literally unvarying opinion over many many months from "Strong Buy" to just "Buy"... that's the equivalent of finding a billion pound shortfall in the accounts. What next for the Ocebot? Self-awareness? Freedom of thought?

All is clearly not well with UKOG if things have got to this previously inconceivable stage...

Ian, that is another of your increasingly bizarre comments. You seriously believe that there is no regulation applicable to AIM companies and their directors? And you invest based upon such a complete misapprehension? That is terrifying.

Yes, although regulation is lighter touch than you'd find on the FTSE, there is still plenty in place and yes, the FCA can get involved if such regulation is contravened.

I mean okay, I can understand why, when looking at UKOG's and its board's track record, you might think that there are zero requirements to tell anything close to the truth, to announce information (good or bad) in a timely manner and not to directly contradict RNSed information and commitments...

...however such regulation still exists.

How can someone possibly invest anything at all in AIM when they are this clueless?

Shame that seismic wasn't done before they shut their eyes and drilled blind, in order not to lose the licence through missing the specified mandatory drill start deadline...

Yanis, I hate to say it, but you're wrong. No rerate has begun (yet)... why would it? Today's RNS is merely a rehashed combination of information that was all widely known - it's neither positive or negative, just a summary, so couldn't have any justifiable effect on the SP.

Sure, the market will react to confirmed news out of Poundland (good or bad). But that's not going to appear into well into Q1 next year at the very earliest - and probably later than that now, given that Poundland's commercial viability now seems to hang upon a successful sidetrack being drilled.

The next RNS is simply bound to be substance-free... i.e. a load of spun puff and nonsense about ANGS's sketchy plans for its Weald oil (non-)assets, plus plenty of rainbow-chasing hot air about geothermal.

That will do nothing for the SP either - because the market as a whole is well aware that, unless ANGS gets Poundland producing in commercially viable volumes (given its fixed, variable and debt funding costs), it's game over. The company has no funds to see if it can re-re-re-re-resurrect Lidsey, Brockham and Balcombe for the umpteenth time, let alone get involved in the many years/many tens of millions of pounds process of seeing if it can make geothermal work.

It's all too obvious that George is in the last chance saloon in Lincolnshire and has rolled the dice. He hasn't got the money to place any more bets, so now it's a minimum 6 to 8 month waiting game to see what those dice come up with.

This is what happens when you have to rush starting to drill in order to meet licence deadlines (or lose the licence).

The first drill was not based on any meaningful seismic data and was therefore pretty much a blind stab in the dark. The results (or as per usual, entire lack of them) thus hardly come as any surprise.

It's also worth asking oneself the question - exactly why did the board entirely renege on its officially RNSed commitment to buy UKOG shares as of the 2nd July? And presumably they won't buy any shares at the start of this month either.

I mean why would they? They've got the best idea which way the SP is going to be heading... and it's not like they've suddenly decided to give a rat's behind about the continued pain of the company's shareholders.

Utter contempt for PIs as usual... and they're being paid obscenely large monthly salaries - all funded by PI money, don't forget - to continue to display this.

Well I think it's very clear who's Mr. Piggy...

The number of times that Trollhunter2 has been forced into claiming that he's "delightedly averaging down" due to UKOG's unbroken series of disasters and non-delivery, he's either buying one share at a time, or he's got more personal funds than the Sultan of Brunei and must own at least a third of the company by now, or he's lying his ass off.

I wonder which of those three options is most likely?

2p to 5p, eh? By my reckoning, you're predicting between 15 and 35 bags, Insidious... I'm honestly not sure if you're utterly deluded and suffering from the most extreme case of confirmation bias, or a short-term trader looking to spike the more gormless or a paid shill...

Ask yourself why the current stab in the dark was drilled without seismic? Because they had to drill by end June or lose the licence. It was literally a blindfolded game of pin the tail on the donkey.

So we now know a sidetrack is required. UKOG's never been involved in any successful sidetrack drilling, has it?

As Yogi Berra famously said, more objective PIs will be experiencing a strange feeling of deja vu all over again.