Member Info for jointhedots

Apologies for the previous messy post - it somehow got posted before it was finished/checked

WRT the recent discussion on a fair price and suitable measure of where the SP should be/go, I would point out that the market is so incredibly fickle and doesn't follow any metric, ratio or trend. Having said that I took a look at what was going on at the same time in January over the last few year and it appears the SP has been slaughtered, down over the past five years has lost 60% of its value whilst the sector has rises 10%, that trend generally holds true over most periods except for the last month or so when the SP bottomed. On the basis that the company has progressed in the 5 years period then the SP does appear to have great potential for recovery. More interestingly I looked at the SP vs Oil price previously at this time of year and what happened to them up to the next change of direction - i.e. punt territory. I'm a complete novice wrt charts so this is a rough an assessment, please don't correct me if I'm a $ out on SP, it's the trend that's telling. They talked of minimums not maximum when selling the virtues of the pipeline. IMO it Date SP Oil Price/Barrel Future Trend Price Max with Oil 28Jan13 47 110 UP 58p in April 109 27Jan14 52 106 UP 63. 5p in Aug 105* 27Jan15 37 51 DOWN 38p in July 63 27Jan16 20.5 36** UP 33p in March 36 27Jan17 26 55 DOWN 26.5 in May 53 27Jan18 19.9 71 * Then oil dropped like a stone ** Around bottom of cycle for oil price crash The list roughly illustrated that on a punt a profit could have been taken in 3 of the last five years and for the other 2 the best that could be achieved was a sell with no loss if timing was spot on. Not a great punt in any of those years! Everything about the SP trends is pretty much in line with what was going on in the market and the oil price, except there is a major departure in 2017 which has continued to date. I think it illustrates that the oil price recovery has passed Amer by up to today, the oil price has essentially doubled as has Amerisurs production with associated slashing of costs whilst prospects are dramatically improved . IMO that scenario illustrates more than any single ratio why Amer has massive potential for a rerated SP. I suppose the question is why? There doesn't appear to be any underlying nasties to account for it so I suspect it is a combination of lack of interest, Amerisur is simply bypassed be most investors. More importantly IMO the impact seller(s) that have dampened every upward movement

Wuffle - the BoD originally misled the market wrt throughput IMO. They talked of minimums not maximum when selling the virtues of the pipeline. IMO it was a major screw up and I previously called that someone biter to bullet for a hugely incompetent approach. We (shareholders) have paid for it already and things are looking up now, I do believe the management have been dragging their heels (at least not busting a gut) on the drilling programme and production increases to hide their mistake. They've never admitted their mistake though their language has drifted to cover it up. More oil can be taken IMO and it's all about the attitude of the Ecuadorians - hopefully now everyone has a vested interest in seeing increased production without angling for a superior deal.

Oil reached new highs last night, still at near $71/barrel. In my view Amerisur offers great potential with production growing and cost pegged at low levels.it should be a very profitable enterprise. I regard Amerisur as an investment opportunity not a punt, I don't feel I'm gambling here

There is a nice little hint in there about some other deal or deals being possible, especially pertinent after GC's interview with Malcy where he said he's meeting with the Ecuadorian president, I'm pretty sure its' not going there just to say Hi or Happy New Year. Those new licences mentioned last week are an attempt by the Government to encourage foreign investment by allowing investors to sell the oil independently, I believe that's the main change, there is every chance that no one will take up the licences if the commercial terms are not attractive - perhaps explaining what a company like Amer would require to make the terms attractive is GC's purpose. Again it's only my interpretation, but the problems they have had in attracting investment have allegedly been associated with selling the oil being restricted to Petroamazonas, no profit. The president is supposedly trying to sort the problems out and if I recall correctly the boss of Petroamazonas was sacked and charged with financial irregularities, interesting to see Amerisur claim "It is another example of our important and growing strategic relationship with Petroamazonas EP". Hope they don't get tempted to spend too much, their current commitment is zero as they will get all their initial spend back. "Strategic" isn't usually so cheap.

Yes, good news. The work and subsequent guaranteed throughput does not preclude achieving that production earlier than October, the important thing is that a deal is done and there is a will to increase permanently (no reason for them to drag heels).

The interview was not really to my taste, I like to body language and voice that demonstrates confidence and openness - there where times in the interview when he looked distinctly uncomfortable though always keyed up about the issues. I put it down to him being very cautious about saying something which could be construed as ambiguous, commercially sensitive or an exaggeration. He's a very experienced guy and I assume diplomatic, wouldn't directly criticise the Indians, Equador when drawn by Malcy. What he said was sensible and measured which brings me to CPO-5. The Indians and Amer are being very cagey, at least outside the industry - who are these people suggesting large valuations of the block, it's not PI's (he wouldn't take notice of us) so perhaps industry players as nothing has filtered into the market in terms of SP demand. Who is suggesting huge valuations and why think that? I suspect ONGC would prefer to play it down, if they are interested in taking our share they would not wish to alert potential competitors and push the price up - we are likely to have scant information, just the bare bones on this block. I'm not even sure if Amerisur are contractually permitted to present a formal view without approval, Amerisur certainly don't shy away from over-egging things but not in this case. ONGC have released another tender today for "HIRING OF AGENCY FOR TESTING TOOLS & COMPLETION SERVICES FOR WELL INDICO-1X". They are certainly getting on with it, but there are so many tenders and they are almost presented end to end. I cannot believe they are going to go through this routine for ever well, suggest bad project management, deliberate feet dragging or a team that can't/won't cope with the volume of work. Previously they contracted for 2 wells and didn't formally tender for all the granular stuff and haven't done this on all their other wells. Perhaps they are building a pool of relationships for future work, I hope so as it will be painful to watch this slug-like process for every well. As they never drilled the Sol-1 well which was part of the Mariposa tender, some suppliers could have been reluctant to sign up again at all or at a decent price without formal tender. It all seems very strange and cumbersome, but I'm not an experienced person so perhaps someone with experience could comment?

Velo - the point is it doesn't really matter in the slightest, you're viewpoint is yours and no one can take it - simple present logical opinion and ignore some silly website algorithm. The website will lose and sensible readers very quickly, starting with me. You've done more to publicise it today than anyone. rhodi - agree, said my last word on this.

Velo - behave yourself, I think most of us don't care if you are a ramper, deramper, great guy or villain, the BB provides good debate and I'm sure your posts will be challenged if deemed unreasonable. One thing that is annoying is blocking the BB with multiple posts about nothing, "spamming", when I first saw them this morning I immediately thought "Troll", a shame really having previously read a negative slant on your posts I simply though you logical with an interesting well presented viewpoint. My advise, which I sure you don't need, is stick to Amerisur related stuff and be thick skinned.

Causing trouble again, bombed a pipeline over the weekend slipping oil into a river and kidnapped an oil executive according to Reuters. No loss of production is envisaged and it wasn't anything to do with Amerisur's pipeline. The Exec was kidnapped in a different incident in the North towards Venezuela I believe. The sooner they settle for peace the better though, UN secretary general was there on a visit so perhaps it was for his benefit. Hopefully it's the last Hoorah for them before settling down to be good honest farmers. "Fat chance" lol

easyp - Please don't do that again, you had me going, providing a link like that suggests it's occurred, it's just one of a long list of BS events that may occur. Trouble is with most of them is that unless you're a short term speculator in the longer term they also tend to being a lot of nasty side effects like confidence and/or the oil price plummeting and once a settlement is found or fear recedes. I really believe we need steady, steady, super steady oil prices with only sustainable moves up for Amer to prosper. If it stayed at $70/barrel for the next 3 years we should all be looking at a very substantial profit on our investments. Whereas up to $90 then back to $50 with the same average over the period and I suspect Amerisur may still be in a mess for exactly the same revenue. Did I mention steady oil prices? lol

Some interesting points raised over the weekend, I don't think anyone mentioned the oil price ending the week above $70/barrel though - I think it is significant that traders where happy to end the week at that level bodes well for the oil price holding, I think the chances of it falling sub $50/barrel are looking very slim. WRT some weekend comments - "holding back", I think that is absolutely true, I have felt for a long time that their drive for production is simply a veneer with lower growththan possible, suppression in practice to hide and avoid emphasis of oil clearance problems and low world oil price being a constraint. Hopefully that's over now, if alternatively that have been busting a gut to get production up over the last year then that is more worrisome - I'm hoping they can step things up and drill the planned wells ASAP. Delays mean lost revenue, the sooner they drill the sooner they start paying back their costs - the sooner they're drilled the better the year end outcome. The other thing of interest was the Beneish M-Score, but will not change my viewpoint. They may or may not be creatively generating numbers - I really don't know, or know if the index is currently valid in the case of Amerisur. Statistical errors and misinterpretation of them have often led to some huge mistakes. They need to be given fair consideration but taken with a pinch of salt IMO. For Amerisur, surely as it has been/is in a state of flux, with changes to the business model, doing next to nothing and now with a pipeline leading to dramatic costs change, overheads cut, erratic production, erratic spending patterns associated with business purchases and drilling, erratic oil price etc, these aspects effect the index? I'm very much an amateur in respect to statistics but I guess the M score must surely highlight what is abnormal - well there is nothing normal about Amerisur's performance or business environment to start with. I'm not trying to dismiss the point, for me it reinforce existing concerns, interesting though it is it doesn't chance anything, I don't trust the management of any AIM company in any case.

I tend to waffle a little too much and sometime obscure the message. I was not suggesting Geopark or Gran Tierra as investments. I believe Amerisur offers the best prospects going forward and by a big margin. My point was the Amerisur has been a poor past performer and can emulate their growth - in a few years maybe have a prolific production centre in CPO-5. Plat is always going to be simply a steady eddy foundation hopefully with steady growth, but no one is likely to get excited about it. Maybe some of the other blocks when they gat around to drilling could change things. WRT Mariposa oil sales - the sale price is undisclosed, as the input numbers to the formula posted have not been released. What we do know is that management have suggested it is regarded as a premium product in high demand in an area dominated by heavy oil and was expect to attract a healthy price which will vary with Brent.

Yesterday didn't go well for the talks with the rebel group ELN, apparently talks broke down and within hours the rebels had bombed NOC, Ecopetrol's, infrastructure. So the government have withdrawn the negotiating team, I suspect this is all posturing to get a better deal which the rebels have asked for, it may be that the government have precipitated this to boost fagging support, who knows. No worries wrt to Amerisur's operation though, I don't believe they operate in the area and tend to target government operations for political gain. These are not the main rebel group FARC who have laid down their guns permanently, ELN have a more politically/religious focus than FARC. Apparently the UN Secretary General is going to Colombia to try to help get a deal - so I think it will all sort itself out.

The extract below is what Geopark said of Lla 34 in their 2015-16 results, (note the six month payback period at $40/barrel, injecting a sense of urgency in the appraisal of Mariposa should be a no-brainer at $69/barrel: "GeoPark is leading the strongest upstream project currently in Colombia. In less than five years we have grown from zero to be the fourth largest oil operator in the country � and are currently proving up what is being called the largest oil field discovery in Colombia in the last 20 years. Our key asset is the Llanos 34 block (GeoPark operated), which we have grown from 0 to 45,000+ bopd gross production in just five years. During 2016, following the successful appraisal drilling in the Tigana/Jacana oil field complex, we materially increased the field size � and our Colombian certified 2P and 3P reserves increased by 45% and 63% to 67.4 million boe and 94.9 million boe respectively. 6 Annual Report 2016 / Letter to Shareholders Our 2P reserve life index increased to 11.8 years and the reserve replacement ratio reached a record-high 468%. Our 2P NPV10 and 3P NPV10 in Colombia increased to $1.0 billion and $1.4 billion respectively. Llanos 34 is a highly-attractive, low risk, low cost and high netback block which provides a very profitable production base in a cyclical business. Due to the expertise of our local teams, net finding and development costs (F&D costs) for 2016 were just $1.8 per boe on a 1P basis and $0.9 per boe on a 2P basis. We have a big inventory of wells to increase production, with IRRs exceeding 500% and six month paybacks, assuming a $40 per barrel Brent oil price. In a constant effort to find the best route to market, we implemented an off-take agreement with Trafigura and increased the amount of oil that we sell at the wellhead. We are also carrying out engineering and environmental studies to increase pipeline access." It's hardly surprising that Geopark's SP quadrupled whilst Amerisur's halved - now hopefully we're on the right footing and going forward we are in for a bit of what they've enjoyed (practically every well finds productive oil).

Geopark have just released the Quarterly update for the last Q of 2017 and it truly is impressive the growth they consistently achieve year in year out, the reported quarter is 30% above the previous year. OK we have beaten that this year, but from a very subdued level which is much lower than theirs (factor of around 6 to 8) and laced with prior failures. It really is something for the Amer's BoD to aspire to, especially as we now have CPO-5, digging a little deeper into the stellar growth actually reveals that it's all down to their Llanos 34 block. As I pointed out previously CPO-5 appears to lie on a continuation of a trend of previous finds in Lla 34 and other blocks. It is also described as a continuation of the Yatay field which flowed at over 10000bpd and is more like the oil in Mariposa (same high quality). In 2016 Geopark described the Lla 34 block finds as the biggest oil discovery in Colombia over the last decade Suggests CPO-5 block is in the right zone and the seismic has covered the likely area of continuation and IMO this could truly be a company maker. To my knowledge Mariposa's known parameters are better than any of those discovered by Geopark, I think our Indian NOC partner are too damned slow considering the massive potential. There significant unknown appears to be the extent of the accumulation, puddle or lake size? I'm much more excited by CPO-5 than anything around our pipeline and the sooner they get a second and third well drilled the better. Payback on successful wells should be only a few months, why hesitate?

Tweedlehappee (happee) - apparently Colombians are regularly voted to be amongst the happiest people in the world, just came out 6th in a Gallup pole. I presume the UK is somewhere near to last with all the Britex stuff and perceived problems. Ever likely they are happy, they are getting our money chucked at them and knee deep in cocaine, lol, lets hope they at least behave this year the we can be also be happee. Apparently the rebels where meeting with the government in Ecuador yesterday to hopefully extent the peace process agreed when the Pope visited, I don't know the outcome yet, but both parties where positive. https://colombiareports.com/colombia-second-happiest-country-world-gallup/

Gets more ludicrous by the day as oil moves to near $70/barrel and Amerisur's netback on oil sales grow to levels that will see enough cash generated to pay for the drilling programme in the first few months of the year. Every extra $ on the oil price and every day that passes means that the previously highlighted $45/barrel required to pay for the full programme gets lower and it should not be a simple straight line relationship as the company grows and economies of scale kick in. It difficult to deduce the exact impact of the price and operational changes but what is frustrating is that other oil companies (some that have merely treaded water) have had significant % rises in SP rather than a slump. I know the market is irrational at times but I agree with Malcy this is ridiculous - we are surely due a significant uplift in SP.

I just opened up the BB with the intention of posting how great it was that the BB didn't have any PI trolls making a nuisance of themselves. Then I see today's posts - have we made it? Are finally on the radar? BB trolls are more of a nuisance than anything else, if they put forward a negative viewpoint great, I love that, as it presents an opportunity to debate but posts like "Wouldn't want to be in this share today" What can we say to drivel, you make no point and I don't know what your purpose is "mufcm", but give everyone a chance, we can stick up for ourselves (keep UKOG grievances on that BB). Thank you for your cooperation.

Our partner in the block has released another tender request, this time for provision of site security. Not much in it except that I think we can deduce from the scope of work statement below that SOL-1 is still planned as a well location and Loto is not abandoned (still hope of production maybe). It's detail I don't think Amerisur have given. Interesting also that the guards will be unarmed so suggests general security rather than any rebel fears, I suppose the last thing we need is for one of the locals to be injured and if rebels appear it's best if everyone just runs or hides (I know I would lol). "Security must be kept following all legal requirements regarding this matter. For security issues, guard service has been kept at Loto and Mariposa location as well as in La Carolina gate. The same is to be kept for upcoming operations such as Indico and Sol locations"