Member Info for Jiving

Watching the video it seems to be now highly likely Trump will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. That makes war in Middle East a lot more likely & makes non-ME oil like Nigerian even more valuable. Ironically for us long suffering shareholders the prize we have sought gets increasingly valuable.

Rift. Its not a matter of 'faith' its a matter of simple arithmetic. Of the $4m cash at year end 2017, $2m is in trust & not available for normal corporate purposes, that leaves approx $2m at the start of 2018. Normal operating expenses for COPL are $400k a month divide $2m by that & you get 5 months expenses. Tomorrow we enter month 5 of 2018. We have had no evidence that monthly operating expenses have been meaningfully decreased nor have we had any news that Arthur or anyone else at COPL is forgoing their salary 'for the good of the company' if they were doing that even Arthur would issue an RNS. The whole point of having the $2m in trust is presumably as part of the conditions for OPL-226 (again we have nothing from COPL on what this money in trust is for but what else rationally could it be for?). IF if it is part of the OPL-226 conditions of course they cant draw it down. Simple arithmetic suggest COPL will be out of cash by the end of May, perhaps they could last till June but no company can leave cash raising till the very last minute. Arithmetic trumps hope every time, thats reality. I am a shareholder & I want further dilution at a bombed out price like I want my kneecaps drilling, but it looks unavoidable. 500m @ 0.4 is only $2 million, that must be the minimum.

Going back to the year end 2017 annual report here is the statement that contradicts Arthurs latest spin: " COPL has made excellent progress on its financing process and logistics while awaiting the last approvals from the Nigerian Government with regards to Phase 1 PSC extension and asset transfer..."

The thing is that in Arthur's statement clearly states delay is "..mainly due to a lack of adequate financing...". That is simply untrue as we have been repeatedly told by IR delay has been due to the slowness of NNPC signing off on the outstanding agreements. These are sequential issues no finance can be conclusively sorted out until the NNPC has finally signed off, therefore the current delay from say Sept/Oct has been actually entirely due to NNPC and not due to finance as we have not yet reached that hurdle. Once again I find Arthur to be perhaps the most deceitful CEO I have had the misfortune to come across. Is this some kind of preparation for a placing?

Rift. I absolutely agree NNPC is THE issue. Which begs the question as to why Arthur is spinning this angle?

It strikes me that Aberdeenman often tweets his 'curveballs coming' at regular intervals, sooner or later he has to be right & his predictions coincide with reality. But he does come across as a bog standard ramper. I feel ramping as opposed to share-tipping is disruptive & unnecessary (for a good company) and can get 'innocents' in at silly prices but I also recognise its not going away. I also came here via his tips & it is certainly a great find so for that I am grateful.

This is a bizarre article in that it highlights 'finance' as the key problem for the delay. "While the project has been taking longer than originally anticipated, mainly due to a lack of adequate financing.." But we have been told (in so far as we are told anything) that the main holdup is almost entirely due to delays in NNPC approvals.

11 million sells today in 20 minutes (one seller ?) & a big 4.5 million sale yesterday.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) also announced full year results last week. As always, it's all about whether can they obtain financing for their appraisal/development project, offshore Nigeria. They sounded quite confident in their RNS announcement last week, but they always do. http://oilmanjim.blogspot.nl/2018/03/rbd-savp-sdx-char-matd-copl-i3e-srsp.html

Well he will be over in the UK to try to get investment flows, and as the most attractive sector for foreign investment is oil, he will hopefully be saying with the new legislation just passed that Nigerian oil is open for business again. There does seem to be positive activity on NNPC twitter, contracts being signed, key meetings being held....

CANADIAN OVERSEAS PETROLEUM (COPL) (mkt. cap. �8m @ 0.525p) Directors own: 4.1% (including senior management) OPL 226 appraisal well, offshore Nigeria (spud early 2018) � 40% COPL interest Resource estimate: gross unranked prospective recoverable oil of 237.1 MMBO Chance of success: not yet communicated https://upcomingdrills.com

Looking at the 2017 financials I see that COPL charged ShoreCan $1.7m for services in 2017. I cannot find what Shoreline charged but suspect (as its a local Nigerian cost base) it would be less. Assuming 50:50 division of ShoreCan expenses it seems possible COPL will receive a disproportionate re-imbursement of joint costs. in which case it could drag out their cash reserves for a little longer than the $2m divided by $400k per month would suggest.

Of course IF they have a choice they are going to chose non-dilutive funding via oil production. But as ever it comes down to simple mental arithmetic - how many months does their cash (presumably minus the $2.1m held in trust) last. When that runs out they have to find new finance or declare bankruptcy, for a company with no revenue there is not a queue of people offering money so there is a good chance they would need to do another placing. Not because they want to but because they have to.

Thanks for the update Jay. I agree we are all in wait & see mode. It is bizarre how Nigeria make a big deal about needing/wanting a big expansion off their oil industry without seemingly making any effort to get projects rolling out.

Sub mariner. The whole point is this is a discussion forum not a ramping forum. Everybody has a right to comment whether they have shares or not, provided they stick to the Member Chat Rules. Given its the Internet how can we 'know' if an individual poster holds shares - because they say so?

It looks to me IF there is any wrongdoing its on Exxon's shoulders but sadly it is not a good time for any taint of corruption to be swirling around COPL. The whole NNPC, vast oil related corruption is a big issue in Nigerian politics, approving licence changes etc for a company with stuff like this going around - partic in a nearby African country - is not helpful to put it mildly. Lets see if there is any market reaction on Tuesday, the share price is already so bombed out its difficult to see it going lower but...

Global Witness give COPLs statement, which exonerates them pretty well I think: "Exxon, BCP, Mason, Lawrence, Konneh, and Sendolo did not respond to Global Witness� inquiries regarding the Block 13 deal. COPL�s response stated that the company was "aware of the allegations concerning Peppercoast's minority shareholders." However, the company�s due diligence �found credible evidence that the allegations of impropriety were entirely false,� including that former Liberian officials held Peppercoast shares, and took steps to ensure only the company�s named shareholders received payments. Additionally, COPL stated that the Block 13 deal was structured as a two-step process because the Liberian Government wanted to sign a new oil license with Exxon and COPL rather than amending the license originally awarded to Peppercoast." https://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/press-releases/exxon-purchase-liberias-corruption-tainted-block-13-likely-enriched-former-liberian-officials/

WSJ way more serious. For sure COPL does not need this at this time.

Seems to me they have no actual evidence of corruption. The authors cannot understand why there should be two back-to-back transactions in a day, but of course complicated transactions of this nature take place all round the world every day. But Guardinistas often understand nothing about business or finance so 'think' its evidence of corruption. As someone pointed out the remote connection to Cameron is probably what got this bunch sniffing around in the first place. It shouldn't affect COPL & OPL226 but we could have done without it in the current anti-corruption climate in Nigeria.

Does all this stuff coming out not make it a bit more difficult for them to seek bribes at the moment, hope so. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/28/implicates-former-oil-executive-nigeria-corruption-scandal/