Member Info for Jiving

Rift. Thanks for that email. Arthur is replying in the early hours Canadian time or is he elsewhere? So on his conditions:
i. Licenses were officially extended in Oct 2018 as reported in Nov interims.
ii. We are told the program has been approved, just not yet officially;
iii. I believe permits can only be negotiated/granted after final approvals so are presumably being applied for now.

InvestorPrime. Believe me a ton of us share your feelings about Arthur, timetables etc.

On the specific topic of the timing of a placing. As Jay mentioned we actually have funds (at normal burn rate of $400k per month) till around June 2019. We are expecting the audited results to be released first week of March.I would anticipate as a practical matter that the company & broker would wait to include those results in a placing prospectus. So we have a breathing space IMO till at least mid March.

I am firmly of the view that Arthur needs to deliver substance by end February or we long suffering investors need to take firm rapid action. I have been in off-board discussions with more than one large holder about a 'Plan B'. Between us we have enough votes on our own to get an EGM but that would only be a means to an end.

R_Dunc. The problem is we do not know what form the overall financing will take. Arthur suggested the overall project financing would be split into two parts - the first provided by the SPA would be the £100 million covering expenditure to first oil. The second which he dubbed something like "rear end" would cover the expenditure covering the process from there to market. (I think that is roughly the process I couldn't face watching those 2 podcasts again to confirm details).

Not being in the oil industry myself I still wondered if that was a real divide or an artificial one so Arthur could burnish his term sheet & show some progress before the August placing. It occurred to me that an SPA might actually wish to finance all stages to market rather than be reliant on a third party with their own stipulations, conditions & interests. IF IF we do get an SPA by end June 2019 it will be interesting to see what is covered.

Just shows upward potential for this illiquid stock. Why the hell this didn't happen in a more sustained way Nov/Dec God knows but v welcome now.

Great stuff RA just the kind of analysis we have been lacking on the Board. Are you intending to publish this somewhere else or just on here? You mentioned FinnCap - do they have some research out on NFX that you could share or point us to?

Absolutely agree with HH your posts are far better than the vast majority of posts we have had to endure on here.

Missed part of sentence should read "Well news on 'the' Service Provider was originally promised by Arthur at the beginning of August 2018 in around a month."

R-Dunc. Well news on 'the' Service Provider was originally promised by Arthur at the beginning of August 2018. We then gave him the benefit of the doubt because of the Essar situation, yet here we are now at the end of January 2019, nearly 6 months later, still in 'discussions' with Service Providers and the only finance 'secured' is a term sheet that was first released back in July 2018.

The 'project finance' has always been dependent on the final state of the project agreed & approved by the Nigerians authorities. So there was always going to be a period of finalisation of financial conditions with multiple parties, which may have also included seeking better terms (or an alternative source of finance) than those set out with Bank of Mauritius. However you wrap this situation up regarding finance we are a long way away from where we should be at this stage, with no named Service Provider also agreeing finance.

The big negative for me is the financing news. We had hoped that financing was part of the 'package' to be announced with final approvals but now we get this:
"Project financing for ShoreCan due to be completed by the end of Q2"

I would rather have a firm deal with one service/provider than 'discussions' with three.

Just scan read the RNS and it seems an interesting summary of where we stand but no mention of official approvals. Looks like a positive but 'holding' RNS to me.

NoEasy. Do you have any reference for Arthurs report on the successful legal case COPL fought re-enforcement of the Mozambique licence award. Cant find it in an MDA wondered if it was in an interview?

SM. You are the second person mentioning the expression of interest! Mozambique is loved by the oil/gas majors. Cove Energy got bought out for £1.2b primarily for their circa 10% stake in the Rovuma offshore gas field back in 2012, after a bidding contest between Shell & PTTEP of Thailand.

RK. Yep thats right, it is probably moving along slowly. My one concern would be I believe COPL/Shorecan had to fight a legal battle (that they won) to keep their licence which might indicate they are not possibly favoured by the authorities. It is noticeable most of the other winners are all big oil players - Exxon, ENI, Sasol etc. Any how to be honest it would be best for any news to come out after OPL226, before then it would probably not receive the attention it (& LTH) deserves.

The block COPL/Shorecan was awarded was PT5-B. We were told Exxon was negotiating the first PSC & that agreement would be used as a template for other winning bidders. Thus far the following have been confirmed as signing PSC's:
October 2018 Exxon - for 3 blocks
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mozambique-oil/mozambique-signs-oil-exploration-agreements-with-exxon-rosneft-idUSKCN1MI1YJ
A couple of weeks later in October 2018 with Sasol & Eni:
https://clubofmozambique.com/news/mozambique-signs-two-more-oil-exploration-agreements-today-with-sasol-and-eni/

There then doesn't appear to have been any more updates, as ever an update would be welcome.

COPL's IR are as hopeless as Arthur himself when it comes to correctly informing investors, they truly dont have a clue & of course they don't care. From MK's post:

"....COPL does not announce to the market financing activities in advance, in fact no company does that..."

Here in the August 2018 Prospectus on P 10, COPL does exactly that:

" The Company anticipates the shortfall in working capital will be covered by a further equity raise to be completed in or prior to April 2019, as necessary."

Aim you are absurdly over-reactioning to my simple point - understood seemingly by everyone but you. This is a discussion group about NFX not a rampers forum, and I am attempting to have an adult discussion about an aspect of the company's share price behaviour that concerns me & many other grown-ups. Don't drag the board down into a squabbling mess in 2019 like you played a large part in doing in 2018.

I am not being negative about any aspect of the company, its management or its products - quite the reverse. What I am attempting to discuss is the 'negativity' the stock market has towards the positive news flow from the company - as evidenced most recently in the poor reaction to the positive results in Nov/Dec.

The thing we are lacking is new demand for NFX shares, now it would be great if that came from institutions but frankly the current mkt cap essentially rules that out. So we are going to need new demand coming primarily from new retail investors. A big obstacle here is that many have been burned by past rampers such as Aberdeenman (& others including Aim in a more limited way). I am not sure how/when those obstacles are overcome, turning potential into actual revenue streams is the most likely as Petty suggested. We need new royalty deals or the current royalty deal being quantified perhaps?

Aim. I truly do not understand what point you are making - nowhere in my recent posts have I stated or intimated that NXP001 has no value. Quite the contrary it is clearly likely to be more valuable than we expected even 12 months ago.

My point is really terribly simple - we received great news on both NXP's in Nov/Dec and the share price went down not up & has stayed there since. So the market (not me I am not 'the market') was underwhelmed by what I thought was better than expected news that would enhance the value of both our main drugs. So back to my original point concerning 'the market' reaction (ie not mine) why would we expect further good news in say March to receive a better market reaction & reception than the news in Nov/Dec?

Aim. I am not saying the company will not continue to report successes indeed I hope & expect that to happen. My point is will the market respond to the news of those successes better than it did in Nov/Dec & why?

Jay. In terms of mkt cap the company is minute, but that can be an obstacle to attracting in the institutions - we all know a high % of the shares are tightly held and it is difficult to build up say 10 million shares (currently worth some £200k) let alone the kind of stake size that institutions typically take.

Thats a very interesting article WheelO because its the second time in January that a massive new Nigerian oil development project has been highlighted via a press release at exactly the same time COPL shareholders are told nothing can be discussed because of the election.

Seriously every other project can be public knowledge in January despite 'the elections' - but OPL226 - or is there something more to it? Yes I do see a contradiction here with the propaganda we are yet again being fed.

I think we were all expecting a very strong upward market reaction to the good news we got in November & December. But it was a flop, we expected to be up at 4p+ but instead were stuck where we are now around 2p. I truly did not expect that, but why should we expect the next results to have a different market reaction? Maybe there just isn't investor interest/demand for small biotechs anymore?

NoEasy. Well thanks for the background briefing, Warren Buffet of course made a similar observation when he observed: "The stock market is a device from transferring money from the impatient to the patient."

The problem of course is I think twofold, first, obtaining approval for a Nigerian oil field is a horrifically lengthy & taxing process that would test the best of us. The two something years spent by Shorecan is actually as fast as could be practically expected. Second, there is the Arthur problem - he has his virtues he has his vices - I dont believe in luck but Arthur has been 'unlucky' for the last 9 years as far as COPL is concerned. I would trust almost any other small CEO to get us over the finishing line - say Dave Wall of 88e or Steve Staveley at UPL - but I have well founded doubts about Arthur scoring another own goal in the last minute. I can remember both of us, some 3-4 months ago, saying this really had to be sorted before the election, with all the uncertainty that introduced to an already fraught situation. And here we are exactly where we didnt want to be, I dont pretend to be happy or relaxed about that. With money running out and a placing already indicated for April.