Member Info for jimtheknow

Not so sure about some of the comments about valuable research. The best way to tell a plausible lie is to skate as close as possible to the truth and be selective about the facts and how they are presented which I feel was happening in bucket fulls unfortunately.

As for knowing about the Oil & Gas industry, we’ve been down this road before PoC and I think there are quite a few people who comment who have first hand direct experience of it. Everyone loves your positivity and they want to believe everything you state, it’s good for morale, but the prophecies have gone on too long now for it to be wise judgement and counsel and it now falls into the realms of even a broken clock is right twice a day.

All a lot of the loyal, paying holders want to know with this deal are where are the fiscal metrics to back it up. What is the plan, over what times and what is the payback? Anyone who comes in here with stories of more promise, more jam tomorrow can quite frankly disappear off as quick as they came.

Why is it so hard to demonstrate the hard facts and merits of this merger? If it’s so bloody good then the story is easy to tell isn’t it.

Tell us this will be funded because money will be freed up from a farm in. Tell us the plan is to lend money on better terms than the CLN and we won’t see CLN dilution. Just tell us.

If BPC continue to fill us with stories of promise, show apparent contempt by scant information and silence then we have a right to call them out on this. All WILL be forgiven if they come up trumps but their track record to date does not support this. We want closure on this saga in whichever way it comes. Hope kills.

Star, we both know people with narcissistic personalities won’t be able resist coming back to this board and commenting - it’s impossible for them not to.

For as long as I’ve got a hole in my asre and that the fundamentals of this merger are bad, you’ll be back. It’s as certain as night follows day. Everyone always comes back, sometimes in a different guise, but they always come back.

Bye (for now).

Star, few things. I know it doesn't lend itself to your narcissistic personality (same as Degsy had/has) but you are living in the wrong world if you think anything written on this board has any real influence on the direction of this vote. We (probably not you) use this BB mainly as sounding board for debate, trying to understand what we read and are told, we may post things in the knowledge it will be challenged and in that respect we may see something we'd missed.

We dont need to email the company questions, some of us are under the skin of this company and have been for years. We know what path it was on and even if we're not intending on sending the CEO a Christmas card any year we just about believe what they say in being close to drilling P#1. We were happy with the path they were on, we put our own money into that plan, we believed in it, we're not looking for anything else and therefore we're not that interested in going out of our way to vote Yes. They need our votes, they need to serenade us - not vice versa! I'm happy to vote No as i believe that is correct on the information they have given us to date. I am willing to vote Yes if they prove otherwise but until that day this is another pipe dream with buckets of promise and hope that require time and money - none of which BPC have - so i'm perfectly happy to risk millions of shares on P#1. If they want my millions of Yes votes then they need to come and get them.

People who also say sell up and move on are also missing the point completely. Us holders were happy with the P#1 plan, happy with P#1 potential prospects and still want to be a part of that and we will do our best to stay on that path and we don't care whether CERP come with us on that journey, they can fall by the wayside and continue to fail as far as im concerned. I have never put a penny into CERP as it didn't and doesn't interest me whatsoever. This is business and business sometimes needs to be ruthless in it's goals, get P#1 significantly progressed, or even drilled, and see where CERP are in 4, 5 or 6 months and pick them up in a fire sale. Business is business - it's not a charity.

I would urge BPC to tell us more, there's still time. Tell us where the gains are to be made in turning CERP around, where will they go first, what is their production, how much it will cost, how this will be funded, why they won't become a liability and drain on our costs. We need to know the answers to some of these now, especially how BPC will fund and grow CERP before P#1 is drilled as a failure on P#1 will crash this sp and then we are then in the realms of a death spiral. CERP operations cost money as it's 'producing' (a tiny volume), just, i think - who actually knows exactly what they are doing? It's all clouded in secrecy and old data. CERP could be fully shut-in now for all i know, if so how much will it take to re-stimulate the wells again?

BPC want blind faith but their actions to date don't justif

Spirite, I'm aware of the sacrifices that were made with respect to salary.

As for the football analogy, football managers are often given the boot when it looks like relegation threatens and there is still hope of survival. In that context it usually gives the club that short sharp shock and more often than not that produces successful outcomes for the threatened club.

I think Leo Koots could fit that bill.

The first CLN may possibly go but then we still have the Family Office investor who doubled his fund availability of late.

I'm surprised Resolution 3 hasn't had much discussion on here this morning.

I have talked on here at length about potential dilution and some of the answers that come back to me are how the BoD are aligned to us. How do people defend Resolution 3 then? As us PI's get diluted out of history the BoD ensure the effect on them is mitigated by the allocation of more options available to them so they will suffer little from this confetti of shares. And you must remember, these options to purchase shares are at an agreed excise price at a future point in time, they don't have to risk any of their own capital now, they don't have skin in the game now. If the company slides into becoming nothing they can walk away with their wallets intact where you will be left with something more diluted and watery than red-top milk - if there is such a thing?

I think it's about time the people spoke up and started to get some resolutions in that were meaningful and focused the BoD mind. How about this:

Resolution Ten: Due to the current effectiveness of the Board in delivering tangible progress at a rate expected within this industry sector the CEO's contract shall be terminated in good faith, allowing him to keep all entitlements and he shall be replaced by Mr L. Koots with immediate effect. Mr Potter shall remain with BPC in a non-Executive (honorary) role to assist Mr Koot's with in country handover until such a time Mr Koots no longer requires his services or P#1 results are returned, whichever is sooner.

Bhoys, do we get an apology for your £200m (pounds) comment? 'because it misleading shareholders and causing a negativity that isn’t needed or justified.' My 200m came from assuming CERP could do with about a £4m injection of cash as i assume there'll be another cash call at 2p. The company should provide some direction on this.

IK, I'm not taking this personally at all and i'm very calm about it all. There's no grounds whatsoever to be emotional about this as for me it purely a logical and rational argument. There is no value in this merger based on the facts we know about now, those facts could very well change and i expect them to as it's such a bad deal in front of us, as is.

As most people know with this deal, all roads still lead to success or failure on P#1. Since our fully funded package for P#1 comes in at around 2.6 billion shares i'd rather drill at that and watch the results come in, rather than drill it at 4.1 billion shares.

If P#1 comes back dust, CERP's 600 bopd ain't going to make the slightest bit of difference to our share price, we'll be sat at sub 1p regardless. And our ability to raise money if our prize asset doesn't come up trumps, with over 4bn shares and a company in CERP that can't make money at sub $40/barrel oil whilst having operational overheads - what is it that needs explaining that makes this a bad deal?

And if P#1 comes in good who really cares about 600 bopd? We'll then focus on our Uruguay license.

Who needs CERP?

OK, good. This is one of my key questions to BPC. We can all speculate how much it will cost but how much will it cost?

Star, To discuss the issue of dilution, which is most shareholders big concern if it is done in a manner which does not significantly lead to generating income, in the same way this CERP merger does.

BPC set off on an Open Offer, Placing and CLN funding path that we were informed would result in the issue of 896 million new shares. We as shareholders can't really argue with this as we voted it through by a comfortable majority and it was what we were told would get P#1 drilled.

What wasn't known before the above was the Family Office investor who get's his shares at 20% discount and is willing to pretty much match that of the original CLN lender in terms of monetary value.

We're now faced with a further 880 million new shares to 'purchase' CERP.

Assuming we stay on course with Plan A we will have seen another c. 1.78 billion shares issued. If we continue with the tranches made available to the Bahamas Family Office investor this will increase by many 100's of millions more, we can't know this exact amount unless drawn, another 300 or 400 million shares may not be unreasonable. And then after all this we will still need to raise money to develop CERP, is it reasonable to assume another 200 million?

This could total another 2.376 billion shares issued from our starting point around 1.7 billion, taking our total to c. 4.1 billion shares.

4.1 billion shares for a company that as it stands is only guaranteed to produced 600 barrels per day. In a climate that isn't profitable. This is death spiral if ever i have seen it.

So, if P#1 doesn't come back with good results how much of a company saver is buying CERP? How much will our sp be? BPC's sp be as worthless with or without CERP so in that respect i'd rather drill P#1 with 2.6 billion shares.

BPC's future is undeniably linked to P#1 and unless there is to be a P#2 nothing much else matters.

Star, Your credibility has now diminished further by the intimation it was you who reported the very valid post. It matters little who the poster was and only if their points were valid. It certainly wasn't abusive or attacking anyone - only raised concerns about dilution which is THE concern given it is the only known mechanism to raise money as it stands.

Why does the fact if the merger doesn't go ahead make you nervous, this doesn't agree with any of your previous posts as you have great faith in the board and what they say. They have given us a very clear and credible plan to fund P#1 which we had all bought into prior to this merger announcement, it was never in doubt by most i'd have said. Are you now saying they were lying in their previous announcements and that it wasn't really funded? We were only 3 weeks away from drilling, how could we not have been funded?

And it's a minimum of 880,000,000 new shares plus any new shares required to be issued to develop CERPS assets and start to get some money from them should oil return significantly above $40/bl for a prolonged period. Who knows when that will be, if ever.

There seem to be a lot of very nervous people around these boards these days who are not prepared to listen, or let other people see, others views that are going against the grain of their own rhetoric. We've had a very valid post removed from here this morning that brought up the subject of dilution, which i thought made some interesting points to be discussed and when i went to reply it looks like the post has been reported and removed.

Seems like BPC is now on such shaky ground that people aren't allowing due diligence and a process to be tested and to see whether it holds to scrutiny. That usually only means one thing, something is weak and it can't hold up to scrutiny.

This is democracy and this forum is our parliament (for BPC). What are people trying to hide? Are some people very nervous about merger proceedings? Even those who want the merger to go through must have their doubts in it's merits and that it will carry the required votes.

That doesn't instill confidence in the merger if those who believe in it don't truly believe in it.

Star, fortunately I’m pretty strong willed, stubborn and don’t make many knee jerk decisions so I’m around for the long haul fortunately/unfortunately, depending on which side of the merger argument people are on.

What I don’t understand is why are people so afraid of my opinion on this merger deal and want me to move on? I still believe in the P#1 geology and what the company states about being ready and able to drill it, I simply don’t want BPC to acquire CERP on the terms in front of us. They bring nothing to the party as it stands other than liabilities and that won’t change for a considerable number of months so if we’d have waited for a few more nuggets of news flow on P#1 progress (license extension, rig named, EA modified and rubber stamped) we’d have picked CERP up for half the outlay now.

Maybe the worry is CERP wouldn’t have survived that long and the liquidation process would have seen it ripped up into its constituent parts? The seagulls would have ensured nothing remained.

Why can no one, absolutely no one, provide a fiscal argument as to why CERP are worth £25m and how that will be paid back without risking the very existence of BPC? I’ve still not heard this yet.

The market are treating this like a hinderance at the moment with the gradual chipping away of the sp. If these so called strong positions people or saying are validation of the merger were true why has the share price only trickled down? I say the reason is because these positions are taking advantage of a market anomaly and trading that position and they are not ‘investing’ on the merits and fortunes of either company. It could be any two companies.

My requests to our BoD is simple: explain what CERP’s cash burn is, what is their break even cost per barrel, where’s the low hanging fruit to increase production, how long will this take and crucially how much and how will they fund this? Is any of that unreasonable?

What I was wanting to add further before the message crashed on me....

They have been at this well over 10yrs with no results, they often move the goal posts. We are constantly told of jam tomorrow and given there are no obvious benefits to this merger than more jam tomorrow, are the people singing the praises of this deal on here with accounts opened since the turn of the year plants from the company who knew what was going on and to come?

It’s very difficult to think otherwise about those who think there is nothing wrong with this deal as there are obviously flaws which are never acknowledged, just more jam tomorrow. There’s a definite theme.

Of late I’ve come to wonder how trustworthy BPC actually is. Given there are no material facts that benefit this merger, the only facts are CERP is a loss making company in a world of low oil prices. That the only thing this merger would appear to guarantee is the longevity of BPC’s board

Bhoys, you are clearly new to BPC and this board. What I will say is this. You will find very few, and I mean very very few, who are under the skin of BPC as much as I am and who want the company to do well, my money is aligned to that outcome.

It does not stop me calling out a bad deal when I see it though and this as it stands is a bad deal. Listen to all the newcomers as much as you want and their half truths which it look like they’re informed, they’re not really, they are just revelling in being a disturbing force.

The metrics of this deal don’t add up at the moment and that is simple undeniable fact. CERP have next to no production, the oil market is against their business model at the moment and will be for the foreseeable and all of this joint merger requires additional money which, as it stands, there isn’t any sloshing around in EQi their company.

CERP holders will remain positive about this deal because they’re getting a good deal and their future would be looking extremely uncertain without it. Prior to this announcement BPC were on a pretty clear path with a plan to fund a drill, the share price would have continued to climb on milestone news flow and will go back to doing that once this bad deal CERP merger is kicked into touch.

The only thing that can be known, and is known, about this merger is that BPC are planning on taking control of a loss making business which has liabilities that will need covering until oil is comfortably back above $40/barrel and that CERP produce so little, as little as 600/bopd, that it doesn’t and won’t generate enough revenue to payback the £25m outlay for the best part of a decade. The only way it can shave years off that payback is to increase production, that requires investment of money, BPC have no spare money.

Those are the facts of the deal on the table, it is as simple as that.

CERP is a loss leader with hopes and dreams of mediocrity.

This board has descended into mostly vomit.

P.S. I can't believe how good a deal this merger is and yet the wider market haven't woke up to it yet and still keep marking it down, must be an absolute bargain given there is nothing wrong with the deal and only good can come of it.

P.P.S. do not buy anything on the back of my above sarcastic comment and use it as a prompt to research and look for the good in what appears to be mostly bad. And if you find the good, let the rest of us know will you please.

JBT, no I’m not worried about this. I simply thought I’d join in writing unintelligible cr@p and make tenuous links to things that have no bearing on anything. I was just feeling left out and wanted to join in.

Only thing that concerns me is not knowing all there is that is to be known about this merger as I still feel we have been told everything as it’s not a good deal for BPC in what we know now.

Star, as you seem to know a bit and comment on these things. Todays last RNS informing Shore Captial are now offloading more shares than they are purchasing, should we be concerned by this? Why would they be reducing their holding, do we need to be worried? Being their broker they are very close to BPC, why does it look like they are worried and reducing their exposure?

That's a reduction of c. 125k shares they've dropped. We were told that JM Finn's increase by 250k showed confidence, what about when the broker dumps half that amount?

Bynari, only a fool would say they 'know' what is going on and I most certainly don't know.

I have a strong personal opinion in what is going on and that is that the chunky positions are not in any way related to the fortunes of either company, they are positions taken to trade the market situation. Logic dictates there is no known value in BPC at the moment, the true value of BPC can only be known by the spinning of a drill bit and this may result in zero. CERP can have a value ascertained but in current market conditions it's running at a loss so therefore there is no intrinsic value. Therefore, my opinion is that the positions you see are not in any way related either company, only the market anomaly that has arose of the merger.

I also believe an RNS of more info should be forthcoming. When, who knows????????

JBT, I don't profess to know what strategy the Merseyside Pension Fund (nor Bektash Manavi) is employing but what I can say is that the Pension Fund is a large and complex and has a Hedge Fund portfolio under its umbrella. The greater fund will without doubt have a tiered risk portfolio with various strategies employed to achieve each funds goals. A known strategy of hedge funds is to explore and exhaust arbitrage (imbalance) opportunities and with the merger of BPC & CERP such an opportunity is potentially opening up with the fixed ratio between the two companies now known.

Investment managers are very sharp and have many different tools and techniques at their disposal which are not obvious to the average PI investor and I would caution against seeing a large disclosure of a position as an investment in the upside, or downside, prospects of a company. What you may be seeing is the exploitation of a market anomaly and they are positioning themselves for that which will likely be one which is 'win-win' for them, with the resultant outcome not as great as what may be perceived from a singly held position.

It could be the market 'situation' that is being invested in and not an investment in the companies. Does that make sense?

What I know is whatever is going on won't be that which is obvious to the normal investor.