Member Info for Jiving

nwgb @ 12.42. Bingo.

Ed, no you dont seem to get it. First thing you dont get & choose to ignore. The background to the placing followed a familiar pattern of extremely, unusually large sells coming through in the days beforehand, absolutely not for the first time with a COPL placing. The placing had been preceded by an RNS on 16 December stating "Initial Debt-Financed Payment: $8 million for 15% of Atomic's Working Interest in all of its leasehold on or before December 31, 2020." This was clearly not correct as the payment was in fact from an equity placing announced on 30 December but actually priced on 21 December - ie only 5 days after the 'debt' RNS of 16 December.

Second thing you dont get is that is that the 30 December financing of 3b shares plus 1.5b warrants almost doubled our then outstanding share capital. Its all about dilution not necessarily primarily about $ raised. So IF the alternative had been to dilute half of this single asset (it may well have been a lot less if this asset is such a great deal) via asset dilution that would have most definitely been in the interest of shareholders. Perhaps you are not aware that selling down a portion of an asset is a typical method an explorer becomes a producer with their first mine/oil asset - its not unusual, its the norm, in well run companies working in their shareholders interests. The asset dilution essentially provides the 'equity' component for the debt providers, meaning vast dilutive equity placings are not needed.

Caw Caw our messages crossed. I dont disagree with your posting or the predicament the largely London based investors find themselves whereby the dual listing structure means they are essentially disenfranchised from exerting even the minimal pressure that is normally accorded voting shareholders on small caps. The BOD exists on a few % of investor votes because of this.

Caw Caw. Please see my response to Edgein for details of my concerns, which are twofold. The nature of the placings which seem to have possibly been done with little regard either for regulations or the interests of existing shareholders. Second whether as a small cap we should be financing our first major asset via shareholder equity or asset level equity. So I am not arguing that no equity should be issued ( a nonsensical position for an exploration company with a photocopier) but whether the placings have been correctly undertaken & whether the tradeoff between shareholder & asset dilution is appropriate for a small cap.

I am glad we have an active Canadian investor on board BTW as we often tend to be very LSE focussed here, and the longstanding Canadian investors have either disappeared or post less nowadays.

Well actually Edgein, my market history predates yours as a practitioner & an investor. There are two issues here. First, the nature of the recent equity placings & whether they were done in accordance with regulatory standards & linked to that whether the existing shareholders interests were correctly protected. There are big concerns here on both counts & this is an entirely separate issue, from the need to raise equity for a company acquiring assets via a mixture of equity & debt financing. It is not mutually exclusive to appreciate the need for equity placings but to want them undertaken in the appropriate way with existing shareholders interests at the front of the queue not the end.

Second the tradeoff between asset level dilution & shareholder dilution is not a given, equity dilution is not always better than asset level dilution - it depends on circumstances. Asset dilution is least attractive for a company with a large market capitalisation where equity dilution has a correspondingly low impact on existing shareholders. A small cap is usually the opposite, they should be looking to minimise equity dilution on early transactions (where % wise it is most harmful & dilutive to shareholders) even if this means they have to give up a % of the asset to secure additional finance. This is exactly the strategy used by many small exploration companies entering into production on their first asset, they don't expect to keep 100% of their first asset, as they realise it would be destructive to existing shareholder value. The Atomic deal is securing our first asset by acquisition rather than development, but the rationale remains the same - a small cap should give up a % of the asset to avoid excess dilution of existing shareholders.

Edgein, equally I am not bothered that you wet some more nappies after my post. Its just who you are I guess, no self control. Each year we get naive newbies who hop on board COPL, without even bothering to check the company & CEO's history. Why oh why dont they have some elementary curiosity instead of jumping in head first & mindlessly spouting a few bullet points. Perhaps you simply don't understand what dilution is & how it effects your share's value, and that there are actually CEOs out there who succeed in building companies by the careful not careless use of equity. Thus far in the 10+ year's of the company's history (see share graph back to 2010) we have had dilution & no assets or oil, quite literally none. This time like other investors I hope it will be different, & I see Atomic as an excellent asset in a safe jurisdiction, so I hope it works out for all investors even you. Jiving.

Edgein, the main bedwetter throwing a hissy fit is you. The problem with this company & CEO for the 10+ years its been in existence is the CEO promising great deals & delivering only massive dilution. I 'hope' this time it will be different but the dodgy dealings prior to the December placing & the deliberately misleading RNS before hand are par for the course, LB28 calls in correctly.

This is now my 4th year in this thing, that qualifies me as an investor I guess - unfortunately. After each placing - always for a great opportunity, of course - we expect 'some' upside but thus far it has never come, not once. Instead every time we get a slow motion share price collapse, until the next inevitable placing.

A post Xmas update from a Nigerian news site. News expected imminently, of course we dont know if Shorecan were bidding but it would surely would have made sense for them to have had a go? Most useful info is that Wood Mac did a detailed appraisal of all the marginal sites & came up with their estimates of NPV. IF if we are bidding on a marginal (s) I suspect news may be out before OPL226 PSC news.
https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/12/27/waiting-for-2020-marginal-oil-fields-award/

Two detailed reports have appeared on SEDAR relating to the acquisition. They can easily be accessed via here:
https://www.thecse.com/en/listings/oil-and-gas/canadian-overseas-petroleum-limited

Back on 16 December this was posted in the RNS, clearly indicating the $8m would be "debt-financed". As ever this was a deliberate deception, as the equity placing was actually being finalised at that time based around a 21st December closing price. It is this constant deliberate deception that leaves a bad taste with many LTH. From the RNS:
"• Initial Debt-Financed Payment: $8 million for 15% of Atomic's Working Interest in all of its leasehold on or before December 31, 2020."

The only people who will ever make money out of this wretched thing are Canadian insiders & BOD & management via their 10% free options.

BTW as its a "non brokered placing" who gets the: ".... finder's fee of 7.0% in common shares and 7.5% in common share purchase warrants in relation to the Placing.

I do, insider selling or what?

I think we are poised for a period of very high % share growth in 2021. A couple of years ago I read an analysis of of resource share price performance which examined relative share performance for explorers, near term producers & established producers. Their conclusion was that % wise the best group to invest in were explorers who were about to become producers, as dilution declined & revenue/assets rose strongly over a short period. Furthermore, the near term producers who developed multiple assets enjoyed the best overall performance relative to those who focussed entirely on one.

COPL ticks both boxes. We are shortly going to be an actual producer with Atomic; likely with production growing for the first couple of years. We then have OPL226 coming on board shortly, possibly followed by another African opportunity (Nigerian marginal?), as well as exploratory drills on the onshore Mozambique concession. A lot of news for first quarter 2021.

"UBS found that the energy sector, which is dominated by oil companies, would grow earnings per share by 625pc in 2021."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/shares/profits-will-grow-seven-fold-oil-stocks-set-bumper-2021/

Thanks Offshore, that fills in some of the gaps about what happened in the last year. I was sorry to see Dan go, but we have to face the simple practical reality that the company's future is primarily in CB's hands. I just hope Kissei is still in the picture for NXP002 - given their history they are the obvious partner - my concern is that the board shenanigans may have understandably made Kissei wary of a company that loses both its Chairman & CEO in 4 months. Happy Xmas everybody, lets hope (early) 2021 delivers for us.

If someone has built up a 300m short they still have a way to go. Today looks manipulated to meet those big buy orders near close, the inverse of the big sells we saw Wednesday & Thursday.

Also note the big 30m buy @15.25 paying 0.2586 when spread was 0.23-0.24. Followed by 48m @ 16.43 @ 0.248.
Investment buying or short covering?

It was very noticeable that there were a number of very large sell orders coming through on Wednesday & Thursday after the news. I recollect somebody tallying them up to at least 300m. This could be one or more shorters anticipating that following the positive RNS/interview, there would almost immediately be a deeply discounted placing where they could cover at a profit. After all frankly that has been the pattern the last couple of years & shorters have made good money doing just that. This time it looks like it may play out differently and there will be no placing in the short term - which means shorts can't cover via a discounted placing that isn't going to happen.

Whimax you don't counter my post because you can't. Clearly the 'emotional' one is you, unable to produce rational points just non points like "lost the fekin plot"