Member Info for jimtheknow

Harry, I think you are right. We are a matter of days, maybe even hours, away from this board descending into an unintelligible cesspit of horse siht as the experts arrive.

I think my time on here is about done. Over the last couple of years I’ve tried my best to impart all information that I have been able to gather, now it’s just time to sit back and see where the chips fall.

Good luck everyone and here’s to hoping a farm-in is concluded around the time when the drill bit hits the seabed, which is about when I think is the most likely time for it to happen.

Arm, technically the EA is a condition of the loan note, there are clauses that state all permits and authorisations should be obtained in order to draw down on the money. As i have stated previously though i think the EA will be a little later than this and will come when it comes, but it will come.

Bryn, quite simply - no. The company will take all it can get from the MF route as it helps fill the coffers and who knows it may even mitigate the requirements on the loan. Which is good for us shareholders on all counts. The companies interest is to give maximum security to all possible eventualities on the drill, it’s not to increase the short term share price.

Any shares that go to the MF are effectively out of play to us, we want this route maximised to its fullest possible extent on this initial subscription.

Trek, I agree with what you say about how it will attract people to the MF by being a nice little margin above their offer price.

One thing I’m not sure on though and I’m going to go away and read it again, is that I’m not sure people buying in to the MF can sell up early doors for a quick percentage. I seem to recall quite a few things in the Leno document basically saying investors are in it for the outcome of the drill and all what comes from that. I’m sure there are words in there to the effect that there is no other real market for the shares, no audience to offload them and as in a similar way to some other funds the Manager can prevent withdrawals.

When they are in, they are in. I think.

First piece of news will be an RNS on 10th Feb with the results of the Bahamas Mutual Fund.

BPC must then satisfy all conditions precedent for the Convertible Loan by 15th Feb or these conditions must be waived. I would therefore hope for news on things like Rig Services, etc to fall in that week. If they don't then i expect an RNS on 17th Feb stating where the company is at.

I still feel the Environmental Authorisation may drag it's heels and not be satisfied by 15th Feb as this relies on contracted in Services, reports being produced and then the Bahamas Government and their advisers (B&V) to process. Anything that involves governments rarely moves efficiently and in a timely manner. I'm not worried by this though as it will eventually get sorted in my opinion.

...is a collective of people scrutinising every possible piece of media available relating to BPC to help us all make a more informed decision on what we do with our money.

That does not mean we should take what is posted on here as gospel, we most certainly shouldn’t, but if the poster has done their job well it shouldn’t be difficult to go away and verify what has been posted or understand the basis of their post.

In this way, with as many eyes as possible, we can be first to any news or better understand what is available.

BPC can rightly be criticised for their past performance and contempt shown to their shareholders but that was in different times, times have now changed and with access to what will be at least US$27m (as stated in Leno publication) we are on a collision course to drill an exploration well within the next 5 months. I challenge anyone to prove to me otherwise as all evidence currently available suggests we are.

Slowly, slowly catchy monkey.

And to complete the circle Eytan Uliel was Managing Director at the firm Carnegie, Wylie & Company where he looked after the firms Asian operations.

Nothing is certain in life, let alone business, but when people talk about these loan funds not being available I suspect they are talking from the perspective they think BPC has found a random lender in the money markets and they haven’t fully researched the provenance of all participants in this transaction.

I know it’s unlikely to happen but fun to speculate. Consider the fact that the Chinese have a huge presence and inject a lot of money into the Bahamas, that Shell are increasing their presence and operations in the Bahamas. That Bizzell and Carnegie who are providing the loan money to BPC once owned a large share in Arrow Energy. That Simon Potter and Eytan Uliel were prominent employees at Arrow Energy. That Arrow Energy were sold to a joint venture of PetroChina and Shell. There are a lot of strong links between a number of the entities either in play or potentially in play here.

If it were a murder investigation I think they’d all be called in for questioning.

Shell continue to pursue ventures and increase their presence in the Bahamas. They are hoping to finalise the 2 major agreements relating to this deal in March.

https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/01/17/bpl-plans-to-sell-stations-a-and-d-to-shell/

Bon, something similar has crossed my mind. I think we are all in agreement that we aren't going to get an earth shattering RNS from BPC before the MF window closes but it's not unreasonable to think we are going to start to see a shift in sentiment before the 7th Feb deadline.

We have all been aware of the 15th Feb loan conditions date for some time and although i always thought this may be a little flexible the Leno document would appear to reinforce this as an immutable date, this should mean we are almost certainly going to hear significant news in the week beginning 10th Feb. The less risk averse may choose to take positions before the 10th Feb.

A question for me is how many shares are out there that are willing to be sold at a relatively small percentage above the OO price? I roughly calculate the total volume (buys & sells) since the 5th November 2019 to be 323 million, i don't know what the split on that is but it feels like that is a reasonable amount of churn for it to begin to break the OO shackles.

Something which stood out to me in the Leno document were the references to the February Loan date deadline. If I’m honest I’ve thought of this deadline as a bit of a soft deadline that could slip a bit because we have experienced dates coming and going so many times.

If the date is met it should be a nice experience for Bahamian investors. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Worth a read.....

https://www.lenobahamas.com/images/pdf-docs/BPC_Bahamas_Fund_PPM.pdf

Bryn, I can’t see them closing it early and they have reserved the right to increase the share allocation as demand requires.

Some other interesting points in the circular. The MF is open to residents of the Bahamas, not just Bahamian nationals. This would appear to leave the door open to say, high net worth Americans or any business residing in this jurisdiction.

100m shares seems a low bar to me, I think it’ll be passed.

Trek I agree with you. I think the fund should comfortably hit its target and like you say probably more.

Have you read the Leno circular about the MF? It’s 102 pages long and full of the usual waffle but there are a few little bits that are interesting in there which maybe haven’t been made as clear elsewhere.

We’ve been talking in here the last few days about funding and on page 62 & 63 of the circular it talks about how the company estimate the well to cost $25m and that as it stands the company has $27m in hand if the Loan is fully drawn down. A reason it gives for the MF is that the company believes it would be nice to have a bit more of a ‘buffer’ should for example the Rate of Penetration not be quite as expected.

The MF also talks about illiquidity risks. It says the MF is being set up only to invest in BPC shares, there is and will be no diversity in its portfolio and because of the nature of the fund and it’s target audience there will be no one to offload the shares to if they want to sell them. This seems to reinforce the belief that whatever share capital goes that way is forever ring fenced from main market. They are essentially investing on the outcome of a drill, which is just in the singular at the moment.

.... and definitely don’t put more money in if you are comfortable with where you are at. I’m being serious there, it’s not a joke. Nobody should ever put more in than what they are comfortable losing.

For all we say on here everyone has there limits and nothing is worth losing the shirt off your back. It’s a high risk high reward play.

Old, putting aside the old adage of every AIM company being a load of crooks, liars and swindlers.

After everything that BPC have done over the last 6+ months bringing this to where it is, culminating in an offer to Bahamian people and raising significant cash, not loan money, actual hard cash. Do you think it’s more likely or less likely this is a big facade and it’s going to go pear shaped for investors?

For me the biggest risk to this drill not happening is something like another Macondo in the industry or Bizzell/Carnegie going bankrupt. I don’t feel it will be because of anything BPC have control of.

I’ll be disappointed if it does but it won’t surprise me if the 15th Feb date slips a bit but even then I can see it slipping much into March.

Old, you are right in the black & white sense in that this is not fully funded yet. There are conditions which must be satisfied (or waived) to allow BPC to access the Loan funds, this is why i said there is 'a plan to access any outstanding money' and this is why we are the price we are. It goes without saying if we'd have satisfied all conditions and drawn down on the loan the sp would be much higher in my opinion.

For me at this moment in time a BPC investment is all about appetite to risk (as always) but not in the sense of intangible pipe dreams requiring blind 'faith', the risks now are tangible as we have real world objectives on a finite timeline that must be met. We can critique the Boards delivery and ability to deliver against these objectives and come up with our own risk profile.

You feel like someone who is more risk-averse and that's fine. For me i am comfortable with where BPC are at although i am very frustrated at the pace of things. I can get over the time thing as we are but a couple of months max from knowing almost everything we need to know about this company and to me this is likely to be more closer to 4 weeks. The sequence of known objectives for me is as follows:

Closing of Mutual Fund. - Will happen on 7th Feb and i'm hoping for a big take-up but not worried if it's only 20%.
Rig & Well Services Contract. - I would like to see this RNS before 15th Feb but suspect it may come same time as EA.
Environmental Authorisation. - May be the one that drags its heels as its contracted in services to BPC, hopefully by 15/2.
Drawing of Loan funds. - Once all above is complete i'm going to say a first tranche of money in mid March.
Rig Mobilisation. - Mid to late March.
Spud Conductor - Late March / early April.

I think our board is very capable of delivering on the above, they have a track record of oil & gas projects and that's why i'm comfortable. People can choose to hold on until March when almost all the above ground risk has dissipated but they will likely be paying more, that is their prerogative.

Old, what makes you think the well isn't going to be funded? All information in the public domain would say that we have a combination of; money received, or, a plan to access any outstanding money that covers the projected costs.

People keep talking about 2yrs operating costs and its true this is a clause in the Loan T&C's but no one knows what this liability is, people have speculated £2m but the truth is we don't/can't know for sure what it is, it could be more or less depending on our personnel overheads, etc. And we don't know either whether it will be waived or the criteria relaxed.

I agree with you the MF is a small transaction and my belief is that its primary purpose isn't to raise funds critical to the success of this project, it is nice-to-have money with it's primary objective being to sway in country favour.

We're not going to hear anything significant on the news front until the MF closes and that is why we are floating around the 2p mark. It's a total pain in the asre but we just have to wait 3 or 4 more weeks and we'll get some needle moving news i'd say.

Remember what the Bahamas Attorney General said back in February / March last year. I wonder if he or his colleagues would be people who were classed as 'sophisticated' Bahamian investors and people who would be able to buy into the MF? Just a thought.

I agree with a lot of comments on here about not hearing a great deal until the fund closes or when the people clocking up the subscriptions know it's got very close to the target 100m, the company wouldn't want to look like it wasn't a level playing field.

A similar thing could be said about a farm-in. In hindsight it wouldn't have been right to conclude anything before everyone has had their chance to get on board and there's probably a strong argument for something not to be concluded before Bahamians had their opportunity. The locals are already complaining in their local press this is their oil.

I personally feel the closing of the Mutual Fund will be the closure of many chapters in the BPC story and the catalyst for a whole new era.