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Cperkin - The Scirocco comparison is not to do with delays with Ruvuma, I am talking about the £4.5 million from the Horse Hill sale that was supposedly ringfenced for acquiring other assets but instead disappeared into directors salaries, administrative expenses and consultancy fees over the next two years. This is what I am almost certain would happen with Block's funding for the second well if it is delayed for any significant time period. The money was raised last December to drill two wells and I expect it to be spent on drilling two wells and nothing else.
Personally, I think that Block must be fully funded for the second well. If they are not then that is it as far as I am concerned, I will not be putting any money in to any further raisings and will instead be calling for the wholesale replacement of the existing board as they will have completely betrayed our trust.
It is one thing for an oil drill to not go as planned (this is the nature of the game and we all know that some drills are successful, others are less successful and still others are complete dusters) but is a completely different thing for a company to raise money for two drills and then spunk all of the cash on one. I do not think that there is any chance that they have done this but it they did then it would have been a complete betrayal of shareholders trust and they should not be given the opportunity to drill again.
It is pretty simple from my point of view. If the BoD still have the money to drill the second well then they should be allowed to get on and do it but if they haven't they should step down and appoint someone with successful in-country drilling experience to take over and try again with new funds.
These two wells are the existing BoD's last chance as far as I am concerned. If they do not get a decent combined flow rate from the two wells then they have let shareholders down and should fall on their swords.
My concern about changing the board after WR-B1a is that this may mean that the second well is never drilled. As we have both seen from our disastrous time at Scirocco, funds once received have a habit of simply disappearing into administrative expenses if they are left in any small cap company too long.
At Block, the company raised money last year to drill two wells and so we are fully funded to drill the second well. One thing I can guarantee is that if we waited around for 6 months while finding new management then that drill money would disappear into administrative costs and we would no longer be fully funded to drill the well.
Even if WR-B1a only produces 100 bopd then we should still drill the second well. If that one is also a failure then we should mobilise to get the board out and, as you say, replace them with an experienced team with Georgian operating experience.
Hopefully it will not be necessary though. Remember we could still end the two well drilling campaign with 700+ bopd flowing from the two wells and this would be worth around $20 million per annum in gross income which would leave us all be saying how well the company has done. Here’s hoping anyway.
I don’t mind waiting until the first week of December if they can turn this around and post some decent results by then. Hopefully we can also get the second and less risky well under way by then so the board will have at least delivered on their promise to drill two wells this year by then. Hopefully these will finally deliver us all with some good news.
If the neither of these wells deliver good news to us then we need to mobilise as private investors and get rid of the current board without letting the Scottish contingent get their hands on the company. Our assets have such potential there must be someone out there who can deliver the commercial production that we all want if the current lot cannot manage to do so.
From my point of view, if we do not get significant results from on or other of these two wells then it will be time to really make our feelings known and get rid of the current board.
When does everyone think that we are going to get the updates on the results of the cleaning and the flow test of WR-B1a? My thoughts are that given that we had to wait for the chemicals to arrive, carry out the cleaning and then flow test for several days to check the rates that it will probably take until the end of the first week of November, with the chemicals hopefully arriving next week. Does anyone think differently?
magicpuppy - like you say it all depends on what the actual flow rates are from this. At the current oil price every hundred barrels is worth $7,700 gross per day (or $2.8 million per year) but there is a hell of a lot of difference between $2.8 million for 100 barrels and $14 million for 500 barrels.
Given the past history I can appreciate why Haywood is not making any estimates of flow rates just now, but personally if they were being able to clean up WR-B1ato get it to flow anywhere between 200-300 barrels at this stage then I would call that a result at this stage. It is not the 500+ barrels that I was hoping for but it is better than nothing - and at the moment it feels to me like the market is pricing in this well as a duster so I am hoping that the only way is up, both for this one and JKT-01.
My figure of 200-300 barrels is just picked from thin air as something I would be able to live with (and that I think would raise the share price) but it does feel like this well is not completely dead and they should be able to get something flowing. It is just a question of how much.
Anyway, this is me trying to keep positive...
Since I was hoping for an RNS announcing that we were flowing at around 500 bopd, there is no way of reading this as anything other than bad news. The question that I need to clarify in my own mind is: how bad and is it recoverable?
The fact that gas an oil have been recovered to the surface suggests that all may not be lost - or am I just clinging on to optimistic hopes?
I am just back from holiday and am very pleased to see that the concert party's puppet Charles Valeschini has finally been kicked out of Block. As I said before this allows us to finally draw a line under this whole sordid little corporate takeover affair and concentrate on what is important to all of us - success with the drill bit.
The results in both votes clearly went the right way for all who believe in the future of Block Energy, but it has also come at great expense to everyone except the concert parties themselves. The two 303 votes appear to have cost the company about £200,000 but the real damage has been felt by us shareholders as these corporate actions have massively depressed the share price in the middle of the drill – which is a time that any other small cap oiler would have expected the share price to show a significant increase in the anticipation of good results.
This lack of any significant rise is a blame that can laid firmly at the door of Lang, Fitzpatrick and their cohorts. If they had not taken the actions that they did (which were solely for their own benefits anyway) then I believe that we would be looking at a share price of at least 4p by now. We just have to hope that this is an end to it and they do not keep going with their takeover attempts at such a crucial time in the company’s development. We have this well to finish and another well to drill and I feel that with these two recent votes management have at least earned the right to get these done without any further interference.
We need good results though. We as retail investors have shown what a significant force we can be in steering the future direction of Block Energy and we should not hesitate to use our influence if the drilling results are not good.
Having seen the RNS today I have extreme reservations as to whether GP Jersey and the other minority shareholders – Jon Fitzpatrick, Alistair Ferguson, Peter Young, et al have any idea about how to successfully operate a business if they truly think that it is a good idea to spend £2 million of shareholders money on their own vanity investigation instead of drilling wells.
GP Jersey – is the vanity vehicle of 30 year old Frazer Lang, a spoiled little rich kid who (according to his own linked in profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frazer-lang-6b7ba9161/) has only worked for 4 years in his life and whose only job outside his own family business lasted 7 months before he “resigned”. So I guess it is not really very surprising that Frazer would have no idea what anything actually costs in the real world. He probably just assumed that Block would put the cost of the forensic investigation on his daddy’s credit card like he would have!
However, it is surprising that Jon Fitzpatrick and Alistair Ferguson did not have a better idea of how much the forensic investigation would cost before the demand for this second 303 was made, after all they are supposed to be experienced industry professionals who have successfully managed other Aim-listed companies in the past.
The fact that they put forward this motion at all can only mean one of two things:
a) They had no idea how much such an investigation would cost – in which case they are completely incompetent and should not be listed to on the basis that they do not know what they are doing.
b) They did know how much this type of forensic investigation would cost and simply did not care that £2 million of shareholders money would be spent on it as long as it helped them to get their hands on executive control of Block Energy. In which case it is a scary look into what a company run by this lot would actually look like – spending a huge amount of company money on their own vanity projects with no concern at all for shareholder value.
Whichever answer is the right one the very fact that they were willing to put forwards such a stupid and expensive proposal shows that they should be allowed nowhere near Block Energy (or indeed any other public company). Once again, we should gang together and vote down their ridiculous and completely self-serving motion.
I would also like to enquire if anyone here knows how much it costs to company to carry out the whole procedure of the 303 notice each time GP Jersey request one. How much of our money have they wasted already with their ridiculous demands.
Vote them out again and then let’s see if we can kick them completely out of town.
I was given a warning by LSE for the terminology used in my last post. Apparently the minority shareholders are still "in dialogue with LSE to ensure that their own use guidelines are met by all users."
I assume that it is still ok for me to voice my opinion that Charles Valeschini does not represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of investors who today voted against his appointment as Chairman.
IN MY OPINION: Valeschini should be fired immediately as this whole sorry affair cannot be finished until he is gone.
I feel that the motion must have been defeated as PIs were so organized for this vote and absolutely everyone was dead set against it so I cannot see anything but a landslide victory. But I have been wrong before and I will not be happy until I see an RNS confirming that GP Jersey have lost AND that Chareles Valeschini has been sacked.
Then of course we need to go on and defeat their second 303...
GLA
AJW, you mentioned the figure of $500,000 earlier this morning as a potential cost for the audit proposed in the second resolution. However, I think that this is a very optimistic figure. Amongst the many emails I have received over the last two weeks was one from another poster who state that in his experience with KPN+MG / Bain etc that they wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $1 million. I have subsequently enquired further into my contact network and the general consensus from them also is that the price would be $1M +.
I don’t know about anyone else here but I do not think that the company should take out $1 million of shareholders funds to be spent on what amounts to a fishing trip to benefit a cabal of a shareholders with a very poor record of probity from their own side.
The minority shareholders group seem to think that they can continue issuing 303 after 303 demanding motions that all need to be carried out at the company’s expense and with no consequence to them. They lost the vote on Dimmock at the AGM and so they demanded a second via 303. Once it became clear to them that they were going to lose the second vote as well then they demanded another vote on further criticism of the company. It is as if they want to cause as much damage to the company and the shareholders as possible as a measure of revenge for us not letting them in to come and pillage the company with Gneiss Energy fees.
Personally I think that it is very dangerous for the company to constantly be taking instruction from this collection of individuals, especially considering the dubious and self-serving record that they have – including the allegations of their members being involved in insider trading, conflicts of interest re service companies and non-payment of bills for JV projects with other listed vehicles.
I would rather that Block spent $1 million on drills rather than accountants and I would rather that we reject everything that this minority shareholders group have proposed. It is clear that they only have their own interests at heart and we should send them a message in no uncertain terms that they are not welcome in our company and they should take their never-ending 303s somewhere else.
If anybody has not yet voted in the vote on Dimmock can you please call your broker now and see if there is still time to register your vote against them. As has been said here before: every share counts and it is about time we stood up and bloodied the nose of this collection of AIM bully-boys.
I have refrained from posting much on this site recently for fear of getting banned by the shareholders propaganda group who seemed for a while to be policing this site rather more ruthlessly than the CCP police in Hong-Kong. I raised a special chuckle when I say them announce that “We have been in dialogue with LSE to ensure that their own use guidelines are met by all users.” It would probably be more accurate to say “we have been in dialogue with LSE to ensure that any posters who say anything negative about us are banned – at least until the vote is over”.
It was absolutely craven and pathetic from LSE and all I can say is: thank God for Twitter, who seem rather less inclined to cave into the demands of self-important little dictators.
The shareholders propaganda group seem to have disappeared from this website thankfully and (more importantly) the wider market seems to have woken up to how grubby and unsavoury the members of their secretive little cabal actually are. I am very happy that both the Georgian State Agency of Oil and Gas and the Institutional Shareholder Services organisation have both taken Block's side and in the case of the latter have recommended voting against.
I think that it is particularly revealing that Block Energy announced that the concerned shareholder group had tried to push Alistair Ferguson onto the board and been rejected and had also tried to push Gneiss Energy onto the company as paid advisors and also been rejected. I am not going to say any more for fear of being banned. But do we think that these appointments would have been rejected if Chuck Valeschini was chair of the company?
it certainly appears to me to be clear that those who would benefit most from the success of the minority shareholders proposals would be the members of the minority shareholder group themselves. But I shall say no more on this matter.
I think that all of us private investors should give ourselves a big pat on the back for recognising the danger of what was being proposed well before the wider market did and successfully banding together to reject them en mass. Hopefully we have been equally astute at spotting the opportunity that Block possesses in Georgia before the wider market and can see a significant increase on todays share price by the time the drill comes in.
The corporate fight isn’t over until next Wednesday though – so please if anybody has not yet voted then please vote against and let me know via: https://twitter.com/Only1Holyroller if you want to join the Private Investors Shareholder Group
Message from AJW via email:
Back on Friday.
Hi Awax - I was contacted by email yesterday evening by a shareholder who wishes to remain anonymous but who appears to have a significant degree of industry knowledge. He asked me to contribute the following to your discussion:
He wrote:
"could you help awax and scoobybrex with respect to logging while drilling. One asks what benefit does this actually give for the company, the other answers "Logging whilst drilling is real time data collection during the drill, The alternative is wireline logging when the drill is finished with a section or the well a different tool is inserted into the well for data collection" which sounds like a copy and paste from a website. However, only wireline works with gravity, in other words the weight of the tool carries it down the well, and then it's pulled back up. Once a hole gets past a certain inclination usually reckoned to be around 65-70 deg, the component of gravity acting to lower the sonde cannot overcome the friction of the hole walls. So LWD is the only realistic method* of getting data in a highly inclined or horizontal hole section. *=there are tractors designed to pull the sonde down, but these are pretty rare. "
That is the sum of the email sent to me. It is not my technical knowledge but I hope that the information is correct and informs your discussion.
Because Rocklawn, the single biggest issue facing the company at the moment is the attempted boardroom coup being carried out as we speak by a number of activist investors who are determined to stop us discussing what they are doing on these boards. It absolutely beggars belief that you do not think that it is important to discuss the fact that these people demanded a general meeting to remove the company chairman only a week after he was voted in at the AGM.
I will stop discussing their actions when they stop issuing 303s.
According to the proxy form all votes have to be received by the registrar no later than 48 hours before the meeting - so 11am on Monday 9th August.
To ensure that your vote is counted I would recommend that you vote as early as possible as if you hold shares in a nominee account then you will have to vote earlier - your broker will have to get them to the registrar by 48 hours earlier.
If you are unsure of the timings then contact your broker directly and ask them what time they need to register your vote by.
Hi Everyone – GP Jersey et al appear to have managed to get the previous thread on us organising a Private Investors Shareholder Group deleted so I think that it is only fair that I should put it up again so those who have not already seen it will know what we are trying to achieve here.
hanks very much to everyone who has got in touch with me to tell me how many shares that they represent and what way they are voting. I apologise for not being able to reply to everybody over the weekend but I will reply to everyone that I have currently missed out on this evening so please don’t think that anyone has been forgotten or ignored. It is just me not having enough time.
I would also like to say a big thank-you to all of those of you that have shared their research with me via email and downloadable links. It has really helped to put together a better understanding of the activities of the various members of the Scottish contingent pressure group and how they have tried to carry out similar actions at other companies.
Since LSE effectively prohibit any criticism of GP Jersey et al here I will refrain from posting any more on this and will the information to my twitter over the next day or so. If anybody wishes to send me any more research then that would be welcome too and I will be happy to provide links to it via my twitter.
The more I see from what we have jointly researched into GP Jersy et al, then the more I am convinced that they only have their own interests at heart and if we let them get executive control of Block Energy then it will be terrible for all private investors. If you have not already voted against them then please can I urge you to do so as soon as possible.
Will anybody who has not already got in touch with me with their shareholdings and voting intentions who would like to join the private investors please do so. The contact details can be found here: https://twitter.com/Only1Holyroller
Once we have got GP Jersy and their cohorts out of the way then we can use our collective shareholding to force the company to start putting private investors front and centre in their considerations – but we can only do this if we work together.
Thank you to all of those who have been in touch with me by email to potentially help put together a private investors shareholders group to challenge the likes of John Fitzpatrick, Alistair Ferguson, Frazer Lang and GP Jersey. I will be back in touch with you individually by email over the weekend.
We still need a few more people to start putting together a really substantial voice against those who wish to steamroller through their own plans for the company. Please could anyone who is interested in helping us have a stronger voice against corporate predators drop me an email with the size of your holding. My contact details can be found here https://twitter.com/Only1Holyroller
Please help if you can we we are definitely stronger together.
Just googled Angus Energy vs Gneiss Energy and it came up with this: https://www.law360.com/articles/1400350/uk-litigation-roundup-here-s-what-you-missed-in-london I can't see the whole detail but if anyone can please can you post it up here.
It doesn't reflect very well on Gneiss Energy as an advisor if their customers are suing them does it? Are these really the sort of people we want involved in our company?
As you probably all know, I am not in favour of what is going on at Block at the moment. I believe that the shareholders action group that wants to put it’s own chairman in place is wholly self-serving and will in no way serve the interests of private investors. I think that if they are successful in their attempt to control the board of Block Energy then the corporate advisory firms that some of these individuals are associated with will benefit far more substantially than any shareholders as has already happened in other companies that they are associated with.
I believe that often on AIM PI’s are treated like mere tools and are used for their votes by larger groups when events like this occur only to be discarded when they have achieved their aims. Here, at Block I think that we finally have a chance to do something about it.
As many of you know I have been trying to collate votes against the proposals and a number of you have already dropped me the details of your shareholdings. I would like to inform you that our collective holdings (that have been emailed to me so far) are fairly close to matching that of GP Jersey which would, of course, enable us to request a 303 motion of our own. Personally I don’t think that we should follow that route until the drill is finished – as I think that it is diabolically self-serving of GP Jersey to be damaging our share price with their corporate action currently and we should not do the same. However, I think that if we were to show the board that we did represent a significant voting “Block” then we would be able to approach them with questions/demands of our own and would be able to get these addressed – as the threat of a 303 of our own would be the stick behind the carrot.
Obviously nothing would be done without the full agreement of those in the group but it would allow us to be taken more seriously by the bigger players in this contest as I genuinely believe that at this point in time it is one of those rare occasions where it is us as private investors that wield the balance of power.
Please could any of you who think that this would be a good idea and would like to back put your shareholding into a genuine private investors block drop me an email with your holdings. Contact details can be found here: https://twitter.com/Only1Holyroller