Meet and greet30 Jan 2025 13:34
I attended Tuesday evening’s Sound meet and greet.
There was a very positive atmosphere and the word “if” has very much been replaced by “when”. Real progress is being made with the Phase 1 project. Revenues from this are now pretty much certain albeit a few months later than hoped.
Despite the €24m Bond (which is in process of renegotiation), there was a real feeling that there was now cash in the bank, allowing Sound to move onto new projects of its own, while having the now, near certainty, of future, very substantial revenues from its 20% of Phase 2. The capital burden of the next developments and explorations are being carried by Managem, who have all the financial resources, business, political (and Moroccan High-Society!) connections to see the projects through.
Graham was keen to stress that the money in the bank will not be wasted. The natural Hydrogen agreement with GeoTech has not involved any expenditure, just a sharing of data with a potentially useful ally. He was not giving any clues away about other projects.
John Argent was very exited about the all expenses paid drills at SBK and M5, both of which will be achieve this year. He was particularly excited about Sound getting back to its exploratory role at Sidi Mokta. They have identified a number of potential drill sites within the Sidi licence area, which already has producing wells nearby, which are connected to a pipeline. They now have the funds to progress the more detailed seismic required before making the decision on which of these sites to drill first. Sidi has the potential to exceed Te5, with deeper strata below the TAGI. Hopefully they can achieve even better Farm-out deals than at Tendrara.
John had in his hand the latest bit of seismic technology, which he was keen to show off. This a small wireless receiver, which will replace the brick-sized receivers, which have to be connected by a several kilometre long wire, greatly reducing costs, time and manpower needed to gather the needed the Sidi seismic data.
I asked Mohammed Seghiri about us being in competition with the LNG terminal and regassification plant in Nador and he explained that Sound would be connected to the GME pipeline several years ahead of them. That our 120km pipline was a relatively simple and inexpensive bit of engineering. Planning is already in place and the route is largely over government controlled land and not over difficult terrain. The CPU is the more complex and expensive part of Phase 2 and will not be at Te5 but at a site central to both this and the potential Anoual sites.
No one could explain why the SP was so low, other than that good things take time!
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