RE: MSG Post Finansavisen22 May 2024 10:21
Obviously, we do not know if the arbitrations are going to be successful and, if they are successful, whether Zenith will receive all the money that they are claiming. However, the simple fact is that this is a huge amount of revenue that the company could receive in pretty short order.
According to the March 20th RNS, Zenith expect that the first arbitration award will be made befor the end of 2024, the second arbitration award will be made in Q1 2025 and the third arbitration award will be made in 2027.
Imagine for one second that these were not legal arbitrations but oil wells being drilled by Zenith. How excited would we be if we were going to drill an oil well which, if successful, would be sold by Zenith for $7.5 million before the end of the year. How excited would we be if we were going to drill a second oil well in Q1 2025 which could be sold for up to $85 million with a third in 2027 that we could sell for up to $48 million. The answer is, that we would all be over the moon.
The potential with the arbitrations is huge- much much bigger than Zenith have ever had from drilling oil, and the risk is no greater than any oil drill. So we should be excited.
Even if we subscribe to the idea that Zenith do not win every arbitration, or that they do win and only get a percentage of the amounts claimed then the numbers involved are still probably at least around $50-80 million – so even a conservative success should deliver cash of at least 10 times the current market capitalisation.
4. The SMP Court Case – We also have the SMP court case in the pipeline where Zenith are claiming approximately $6 million for the failure of the drill that SMP drilled on behalf of AAOG.
I have no idea what the status of this court case is since the last announcement that the company made about it was on October 18th 2023, but if the case had been struck out then they would have to have announced that this had happened, so we can safely assume that it is ongoing.
From what I have previously read about the drill then they court case seems fairly certain that it is to be found in Zenith’s favour but it is being held in France and involving a French company so let’s give it a chance of success of approximately 50%.
If we put all of these factors together then Zenith seems like it could provide a very successful share price performance over the next 12 months. The company’s current market capitalisation is approximately $5 million USD, yet it has a court case for $6 million, arbitrations for $140 million and the potential of acquiring assets in the US that if they produce approx. 500bopd would (alongside the Italian production) more than cover the company’s expenses and provide a substantial revenue stream on top. I have not bothered to talk about Kazakhstan here as I think it is very unlikely to happen but if it did then that would also be massive for the company.