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Yanis, I'm also disappointed in the extreme brevity of a relief-inspired minispike. It feels a lot like the final episode of the recent Line Of Duty series... hyped to the max by the BBC and the media, huge expectations caused... and then the actual broadcast was a massively anticlimactic damp squib.

I suspect that ANGS is continuing to suffer from an ongoing inability to be trusted - unsurprising, given all its missed promises, deadlines and assurances. The key phrases in today's RNS that are I suspect causing continuing wariness are:-

"...CONDITIONAL ONLY only on the setting of the hedge, regulatory approval of the royalty arrangement by the Oil and Gas Authority (the "OGA") and a handful of administrative provisions..."

(it has to be said, that's one hell of an "only")

and

"The terms of the Loan Facility remain SUBSTANTIALLY UNCHANGED from those advised in our RNS of 30 November 2020..."

("substantially" is one of those weasel words that can hide a multitude of evils)

Well, this is the first potentially positive news coming out from ANGS in months and months, so that's a good thing.

On the back of it, I have a few questions and comments though, namely:-

1. The RNS states that the terms of the funding are "substantially unchanged" from what was advised 6 months ago. I find that mildly odd - one would expect it to be obligatory for the full and concrete terms to be made public.

2. I for one would still like to know what the £12 million is variously earmarked for (presuming it's still £12 million that has been sourced - today's RNS doesn't confirm the actual amount). This is an especially pertinent question in light of the fact that - as we all remember - ANGS was telling us all a year ago that it didn't need any extra funding to get Poundland to first gas. Okay, so it did - but what's this presumably £12 million being assigned against?

3. I would really like to know what the story is behind the incorporation of Aleph Saltfleetby Ltd by Jason "multi-micro-company" Joannou on 3rd March this year... what is the purpose of this company?

4. I'm disappointed at the apparent brevity of the short-term no doubt relief-inspired spike. I was expecting better than that, frankly.

With the above caveats, over to George. Start delivering. Your last excuse has now been removed.

Oh and PS, of course do not forget that the mucky fingers of Forum Energy Services Ltd (which for the record has nothing to do with Filipino owned Forum Energy Ltd) are all over this. On both sides of the prospective"option". So it's heads FESL wins... and tails AAOG PIs lose, I'm afraid.

Oofy, dear chap. I grant you that my analogy was in no way exact. This is perhaps forgivable, since its primary purpose was to disabuse any existing or putative ANGS investors insanely naive enough to believe the arrant BS being spouted by the Ocelot PR machine and a few brand new IDs that have very recently popped up like mushrooms on a dung heap. In case you hadn't noticed, this latest desperate fairytale claimed that the AAOG/SEL option clearly demonstrated that the Poundland gas field simply must be worth £32 million and therefore ANGS' 51% share was proven to be an asset worth £16+ million. I mean, I can respect a good and slick hustle, but this latest attempt to rope-a-dope into ANGS was pathetic in the extreme.

As to AAOG PIs? I'm gutted for them, but they are truly and inevitably shafted, whether this option goes through or not. If it doesn't, AAOG has next to no asset value, except for a small dwindling pile of cash and a tax loss it can't use, because it's got no active businesses. If it does go through, as you point out, AAOG PIs get a 90%+ dilution, in exchange for 25% of a non-producing gas field that needs at least another £12 million of funding to see if it can even be got to first gas... and SEL will have acquired massive majority control of AAOG over in the process.

So, from an SEL point of view, it gives away nothing and acquires a handsome tax loss. Not that I suspect this will ever be utilisable by SEL, because:-

a) from a cash point of view, SEL has even less of a pot to make water in than AAOG

b) Poundland gas is proving to be yet another onshore fossil fuel fairytale - and at the absolute best given abandomnet liabilities, it can only be valued at what ANGS paid for it, namely minus £2.5 million.

Where I do fractionally differ from your analysis though is in terms of AAOG acquiring any nasty abandonment liabilities, if it acquires 25% of Poundland from SEL. Why? Because at that stage SEL will have 90% ownership of AAOG courtesy of the mammoth confetti issue and so the two are effectively one... and because SEL's liability for (currently 49%) of any Poundland abandonment costs have (I believe) already been agreed by ANGS to only be payable from SEL's share of profits from Poundland. I imagine the self-same thing would apply to AAOG, even if it remains a separate corporate entity (albeit in name only).

So since there's no sign of anyone wanting to lend the credibility-bereft board of ANGS the extra £12 million it suddenly announced it needed for Poundland, there's no chance of Poundland ever having a hope of generating any profits for any of its owners. Hence ANGS remains solely in the frame for all abandonment expenses.

The only winner in this looks like it's going to be SEL, who'll get a £40 million tax loss in exchange for diddly squat. If the deal goes through, I imagine they'll hawk that around to parties that might be in a position to use it for all it is worth.

...or equally, have a look at the assets on the AAOG balance sheet to see what's there that is liable to deliver any revenue, let alone profit (the answer is that there are literally none). Then have a look at any other assets on the AAOG balance sheet (again, there is literally nothing, apart from a small dwindling amount of cash - a couple of hundred thousand max).

The, even if you entirely ignore any potential future liabilities, ask yourself how AAOG, given the above auditable facts, can possibly issue shares that could in any way be genuinely valued at 40+ times its existing balance sheet value...

It's a pure paper-based and "rearranging the deckchairs" exercise, presuming it goes through. It signifies nothing.

To use the example I used a week or so ago, given the close corporate relationship between SEL and AAOG, the current option is pretty much exactly like me deciding to sell 25% of my car to myself in exchange for 8 smarties, each of which I've decided ascribe a value of £1 million. Presumably everyone realises that smarties aren't worth a million quid each, so it equally does NOT follow that my whole car becomes instantly valued at £32 million.

It's really not difficult...

One word.

Conjecture.

End of.

Where's the financing, George?

My sole take-out from this fairly regularly trotted-out theory is merely this:-

Along with consistent and utter non-delivery regarding all things ANGS-related, there is equally consistent and utter non-transparency regarding all things Poundland-related. Welcome to tapdancing blindfold in a minefield, then.

Most sensible investors will avoid being lured by "what if's", preferring instead to be swayed by independently auditable and verifiable facts. Pipedreams and suppositions are best left as material for Ocelot and other pure PR staff to try to spin.

Quite correct. gkb. Two entirely different companies and thus two entirely separate and unrelated legal entities with entirely different ownerships.

Excellent research? Hardly... actually just plain wrong and thus highly misleading research.

One would hope that Tiburn made an honest error... but this being AIM with its unchecked infestation of conmen, that's not in any way guaranteed.

It makes one laugh, doesn't it? Much like George himself, Ocelot (who is ever more obviously a mere ANGS PR mouthpiece) now claims that the funding will take "the time it takes". Very confidence- inspiring... not. There's a massive can-kick for you.

And what a massive backtrack from the "by mid Feb" and "by end March" that George assured everyone of (and that Ocelot faithfully parroted) just a few months back.

Basically, George, ANGS and by reflection, Ocelot have absolutely no clue if any funding is ever going to be secured, let alone when.

Truly laughable. And truly pathetic.

Yanis, I am of like mind - and have been since shortly after the "too good to be true" Poundland deal, that from memory cost ANGS -£2,499,999 (i.e. they got paid £2.5 million to take the field and associated liabilities on).

What's starting to additionally concern me is the decidedly murky shenanigans with SEL, AAOG and Forum Energy Services Ltd that revolve around Poundland, Yes, this is deckchair rearranging, because the option deal is effectively nothing but an intra-company zero value transfer. But as gkb has pointed out, this cannot make sourcing funding any easier - now an additional party having substantial ownership of the gas field being put up as security? And, (just like SEL), one with next to no assets?

I also suspect that something even murkier is going on. It's clear that those really running AAOG behind the scenes have been more than happy to agree to a scheme that finally and totally shafts their PIs (as if being delisted wasn't bad enough). I fear a similar thing is liable to happen to us ANGS PIs, as Mirasol predicted earlier today.

There are just too many interconnections, too many shared directors, too many shared registered company addresses... wheels within wheels within wheels, as gkb has said. It's literally the polar opposite of professional, open book corporate governance. So to my mind, something new is starting to smell even worse than usual.

And yes of course I'd love to be wrong - but gut feel and a little due diligence digging are both making me extremely wary now.

Yanis., it's always important to look at the language chosen.

With ANGS, they've gone from...
"...in the coming two to three weeks, with drawdown shortly thereafter" (25th Jan)
to...
"...with a view to making disbursements during the month of March" (22nd Feb)
then to...
"...imminent" (25th Feb)
then to...
"...we believe that we are in the final furlong" (15th March)
then to...
"...in the near term" (29th March)
and now they're saying...
"...but we do hope that the next RNS will be the happy announcement"

Anyone seeing the no doubt quite deliberate shift from "it's almost here" to "we hope it comes"?

Pathetic. And yet this is the garbage that Ocelot continues to try and spin?

Oofy dear boy, you misremember. It's never been "roux - rouge". Two completely different words. Could I possibly refer you to one of the favourite watering holes ad indeed inspirations of Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901)? Yes, that was LE moulin rouge...

If you want, I could go back a good deal further? This from Francois Villon (143-11462), France's most famous poet of the Middle Ages:

Item, et pource que la femme
De maistre Pierre Sainct Amant
(Combien, si coulpe y a ou blasme,
Dieu luy pardonne doulcement!)
Me meist en reng de caymant,
Pour le Cheval Blanc qui ne bouge,
Luy changeay à une jument,
Et la Mulle à ung Asne rouge.

Note the masculine (albeit in mediaeval form) red donkey in the last line.

Game set and match, je pense...

Le vin rouge, Oofy... note the "le".

The feminine form of "roux" is in fact "rousse". "Roux" actually means "russet", rather than "red".

Oofy, are you HONESTLY telling me that you believe the masculine declension of the adjective "rouge" to be "roux"? Tsk tsk.

I think you may have been overdoing le vin rouge this lunchtime if so, mon vieux.

Also I'd be fascinated as to which of the words "herbivore" and "brown" you are claiming as verbs?

To be fair, your Latin skills should surpass mine, notwithstanding your gerund/gerundive confusion. However, I'd bet a whole English pound against a million AAOG shares that my modern languages proficiency may well exceed yours.

Ocelot's in a positive tizzy. Her latest schtick attempts keep getting called out and highlighted for the farces that they all are.

Oofy, dear chap. I agree that the English phrase "to be demonstrated" is not an adjective per se. However, it is without a doubt adjectival in meaning and is a more reasonable and exact translation that that which you proffered. My sole point about the potential intransitive nature of the verb "to be" is that it can quite happily be followed by an adjective.

As for "hareng roux", that's a somewhat abstruse coinage. "Rouge" would be far more preferable, even in the demi-monde.

In riposte to your snippet from "Caesar adsum iam forte", I offer "ego cum Barbillo cenare solebam". Which for some reason I remember every bit as well as "Pater Aeneas, quamquam tardata sagitta..."

Oofy, as you must know as an erstwhile A level Latin student (I believe?), adjectives are every bit as subject to declension (on the basis of case and gender of the noun to which they apply).

I agree that for the neophyte, it's easy to mistake "demonstrandum" for example as a gerund. However it remains an adjective, meaning "to be demonstrated" (with marked connotations of need or obligation, courtesy of the gerundive form). You will of course appreciate that the verb "to be" in both English and Latin does not require an object.

Oofy, the declension is your clue here.

Much as I hate to quote Wikipedia, here you go:-

Gerundive expressions widely quoted or adopted in English:

Cato the Elder, a Roman senator, frequently ended his speeches with the statement Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse ("I also think Carthage to be [something] that must be destroyed", i.e. "Besides which, I think Carthage must be destroyed").

nunc est bibendum (Horace, Odes, 1.37) "now it is necessary to drink!", in other words, it's time to celebrate.

Mutatis mutandis, "changing [only] those things which need to be changed" or more simply "[only] the necessary changes having been made".

A gerundive appears in the phrase quod erat demonstrandum ("which was to be demonstrated"), whose abbreviated form Q.E.D. is often used after the final conclusion of a proof.

The motto Nil desperandum 'Nothing is to be despaired at' i.e. 'Never despair'. Based on this the cod Latin Nil illegitimis carborundum 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'.

The name Amanda is the feminine gerundive of amare ("to love"), and thus means roughly "[she who is] to be loved", "worthy of being loved", "worthy of love", or simply "lovable". Similarly with the name Miranda; mirari means "to admire", so the name means "[she who is] to be admired", "worthy of admiration", or "admirable".

A number of English words come from Latin gerundives. For example, addendum comes from the gerundive of addere ("to add"), and so means something that must be added; referendum comes from the gerundive of referre ("to bring back" [to the people]); agenda comes from the neuter plural of agendus, the gerundive of agere "to do", and so means things that must be done; reverend comes from the gerundive reverendus, and refers to a person who should be revered; propaganda comes from a New Latin phrase containing a feminine form of propagandus, the gerundive of propagare ("to propagate"), so that propaganda was originally something that should be propagated; legend in Latin is legenda, which originally meant things you should read, (from legere "to read") but became a (fem. sing.) word in its own right in medieval times; a dividend is something to be divided [among shareholders].

The expression de gustibus non est disputandum ("matters of taste should not be debated").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerundive

Oofy as far as Ocelot and entire absence of ethics is concerned (and since we've reprised gerundives, not gerunds)...

Nil desperandum.

Quite correct, Oofy. Ocelot is self-evidently not your run-of-the-mill PI. Today's attempted rope-a-dope is as breathtaking in its brazenness as it is laughable in its lack of supportability.

PS it was still a gerundive.

Gkb, I agree, I actually said that I doubt the entirety of AAOG is even worth 10% of that fake £8 million.