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On the subject of over thinking it, I've again been wound up by ONGC who have released yet another amendment to a growing list of tenders that seem to be refreshing previous expired of failed efforts.

What is telling about this one, perhaps, is that it is an extension of the deadline for a previous tender, which I suspect needs to be in place before they can progress the drilling campaign (hope I'm wrong and it's for existing wells) - the closing date in now unspecified so I guess it could go on for weeks.

and another though crossed my mind - what if the potential bidders (I suspect there is a relatively small pool of capable contractors ) for ONGC's tender farce have now had enough of wasting there resources bidding for contracts that never result in any work and have decided to No-Bid. It's not as daft as it may sound if as appears to be the case the volume of work in Colombia is picking up, they may have been stung already be committing resources to wells that never materialise.

Maybe that's the problem ONGC now have rather than deliberately dragging their feet - they are hell to do business with, clearly those that have raised questions appear to have posed difficult issues they are struggling to address.

"Hiring of Surface Testing Facilities for testing of Wells In CPO-5 Block on Open Tender basis under Two bid system
(Tender No. ONGC-VL/COLOMBIA/MM/OT/Surface Testing Facilities/220/2019/43). It is informed that the Date & Time of Bid submission / closing is postponed, and the revised date will be intimated along with the reply by ONGC-VL to the queries raised by the bidders."

Try as I do to just relax and wait for Amerisur to come good, like many others I can't stop wondering what's going on, I suspect it's a combination of the historically poor level of information the BoD provides and the bones they occasionally throw us to chew on now - which leave us in the dark on so many issues.

So over the weekend I've been pondering the last RNS, as you do, and though I initially wondered why they would cut out potential bidders and thought it might be a ploy to generate aggressive bidding, a xouple of others possibilities are perhaps more plausible.

What if they have already received a very attractive indicative price for the whole company from one or more bidders - then it makes perfect sense to cut out other buyers, else it looks a little premature.

The other possibility is perhaps the strategic review (lets not forget they commissions an external review and surely they should report findings and recommendations), and they have suggested a piece meal sale is not desirable.

Just my thoughts, but I'm sure they haven't cut out potential bidders if a better outcome was possible.

IMO this may be a ploy, they have just told some of the bidders (probably the majority to sod off after wasting their time after weeks listening to our management glorifying the company and wetting their appetite for their desired asset.

This is not the apprentice where they just walk away thankful for being considered.

Maybe one or more of them have already made offers for assets and if so they've been rebuffed - next step for them can only be walk away, pool resources with another bidder or go aggressive - the go aggressive is what I want to see .

In an aggressive situation, that's when the best possible sale price is attained - GC engineering this perhaps.

Tan - I've clearly ruffled your feathers and I would also like to drop this, but I can't let it lye when you try to change the narrative that you tried to ridicule my opinion, despite your protestations the intend was clear.

I knew when I posted it would result in some backlash because many people have long since stopped being open-minded and use ridicule of a viewpoint to justify a belligerent approach even when knowing what was said is true.

You said of me: "Your insights are remarkable. Did you attend the same school as Diane Abbot.? She another one with a truly incisive clairvoyance."

I don't know who you think you are kidding, I don't need to explain it to anyone, your assertion that "I see no clear ridicule in anything I said" and many of your other statements are clearly utterly untrue.

Oh and to clear up your confusion - All I was saying was really wrt the offer price, we will be better off on currency conversion the further the £ falls and included some freely available information to back my point that the £ will most likely tank as it is started to do yesterday, if you want to debate, debate.

Finally, I would advise many of my posts are not simply a random observations even if I don't fully explain the reasoning, in this case it was as a result of discovering that a very prominent figure in the Brexit saga "may" be a shareholder in Amerisur - that information has now been removed from the web - so figure it out for yourself - but for everyone else, maybe that indicates Amerisur is a good place to be if it all goes pear shaped!

So now we've both defended ourselves, lets move on I'm sure everyone is getting very bored

Tantalum - why do you feel challenged?

If you have a genuine question ask it, but personal insults for merely stating an opinion. appears to just demonstrates how sensitive you are to anything that doesn't fit with your viewpoint.

I really don't know what I have said that is not true, even confirmed by government, you have nothing to say simply ridicule to shut me up. That's a sad place to be mate.

There has been much speculation about the eventual offer price. I don't have an inclination to hazard a guess, but I would point out again the significance of the no-deal Brexit or any Brexit for that matter for having your money parked in a business trading in a non £, non € currency like Amerisur.

This is the crux of the suggestion that key brexiteers and their backers are betting (leveraging) against the UK, whilst others allegedly including Mr Mogg have huge parked overseas. It's logical, though IMO unethical for them. Taking of scenario of a bid, if the £ falls by the high realistic end of the band suggested by a major US bank (I'm sure they will be shorting also). of 20%, then by my calculation the value of any offer for Amerisur will be in effect worth an extra 25% to us.

That is a huge uplift without even leveraging or actively trying to trash your own economy by shorting the £ in a crisis, something I would never do as I find it ethically abhorrent to plan to hurt your country.

With this back drop of the current high risk environment in the UK (possible civil unrest within weeks) then I'm happy to leave my money in Colombian assets irrespective of the priced in rebel activity there.

The £ will take a hit, it's just a matter of by how much, how quick and if it is permanent. IMO it's no coincidence that Thomas Cooke went bust and the economy airlines have reduced schedules and released their summer schedules already - yes you can book summer flights with Ryanair and Easyjet now if you have the nerve.

ONGC have released yet another tender, this time for "HIRING OF RESERVOIR SATURATION LOGGING SERVICES FOR WELLS IN CPO-5 BLOCK ".

If the URL is to be believed it looks like it is the Revised and Final version. The wells are unspecified but I assume the service is for new wells - so the point is it could include Indico-2 in which case I suggest they never had and don't have any intention to progressing the wells at any sort of pace that could possibly see Amerisur's six wells drilled this year.

Our BoD should come clean on the drilling programme if, as I believe, it is not going to happen.

I suppose they've already got Coffee making facilities, pens and paper so no need to tender for that, thank god. As my old boss used to say "don't end to end things", it's taking the easy route, in his simplified greedy shareholder/director approach we could do everything at once, lol, it basic common sense hat the boss wants more - well not with this mob they seem to be incapable of multi-tasking with every tender completed and presumably assigned individually and for small portions of the overall service. All wells drilled end to end by one rig, well not even that they take a break between each - it really is starting to look absolutely pathetic by any measure, unless of course our BoD are holding back some reasonably excuse.

As they do not appear to have any in-house capabilities, surely it would be better to simple assign the task to a more capable "Prime Contractor" who is responsible for sorting out the subbies.

However it really doesn't make sense even for an incompetent outfit, unless their intention has always been to slow the development running back the 10years or so they have held the licence.

At least we shouldn't have to put up with them for much longer, I'm not sure I would even want them to operate the Coffee machine. I don't think they are operator in any of their big joint ventures, I wonder why?

A few observations, JW is not necessarily the only beneficiary of Tracarta, he could be putting it in some sort of Tax shelter for his family, and whose to say UK Tax is liable on his investments at all.

Another point is that Tracarta has been used to buy substantial holdings in other companies, not least the two listed mining entities that GC and NH are directors of. They are standing at a loss currently so maybe he can offset the gain against the losses, probably a bit more outlandish is the prospect he may want to take control of one of these entities with his buddies GC and NH when they've cashed up.

As I recall he was a mining engineer originally (BSc Nottingham) and has been investing heavily in mining in preference to Amer when at the same time extoling the virtues of Amer - go figure.

One thing is for sure he wouldn't be taking action unless there was money to be made, which is very promising for us.

Jux - Great post, puts into clear perspective how bad ONGC have been for such a protracted period, it's clearly symptomatic of their approach - the best thing their government owners could do is change the culture by sacking the BoD and installing commercially focused executives to ruffle the feathers of what are essentially die-hard bureaucrats who can't do anything unless it is signed off by everyone and his dog, and if necessary the cat.

IMO interest in Amerisur is waning and the SP falling below 17p because of the lack of activity and the penny appears to have dropped with many other shareholders now recognising the importance of operations, not least in obtaining the best price for our assets.

When I mentioned this a while ago I was told I was out of touch and it no longer mattered - it does. ONGC are hopeless and the problem may now be compounded by a desire not to discover anything that pushes the purchase price of CPO-5 up - for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless, it's down to our BoD to sort this out, something they should have done some while ago. I suggested they needed to play hard ball previously and if necessary go to the most senior level within ONGC and make their grievance public. IMO doing nothing should not be an option. Our BoD have failed and failed miserably to deliver on plans they created themselves and where never IMO particularly demanding in any case. ONGC are useless and only perhaps surpassed by our BoD - that's why we're up for sale, because shareholders no longer believe the proposition being touted by the BoD who appear to have thrown the towel in.

Moving on as that's not the main reason for my post, today it has been announced that the Carlyle Goup via their COG investment vehicle have bought the interests of Nautilus Marine Services in blocks in the Middle Magdalena basin of Colombia.

The particulars of the deal are unimportant, what is interesting is that they have now entered Colombia (as far as I know for the first time after failed attempts to go big) . They have been looking for something to buy for a long time and as I recall have still to make significant inroads into their $2.5bn funds which was specifically targeting S America and Africa. They IMO are a very strong contender for Amerisur assets as they would want to scale up and their presence in country buying interests in blocks is very promising IMO. Partnering with Occidental could appeal to them, not so sure about ONGC, thought they do possess the institutional strength and patience. we lack

https://www.investegate.co.uk/nautilus-marine-serv/rns/disposal-of-colombian-oil-and-gas-properties/201910010700172475O/

BF - I hope the is a timetable , but I suppose progress will be dependent upon offers rolling in.

As I've said before, IB hope one bidder at least goes rouge and starts a bid war - over the years I have found that to be the best way to achieve a great result.

Sorry if this upsets anyone, but I read an article from reuters this morning about the bidding process for the 59(new blocks) apparently the norm for take up is only about 30% of tenders for new blocks worldwide and ANH the regulator has high expectations of this offer with hopefully 20 block assigned - we'll see, but remember the first batch of blocks where in the best locations especially in the Llanos.

Much more interestingly for us, 26 companies have registered to bid including 4 new companies, these are perhaps the most interesting to Amer as they are new entrants from nations with big oil companies (Norway is new to me) and lots of money who could gain an instant and significant presence by simply taking out Amerisur. Those names are due to be published soon. If the head of ANH mentions them then I expect they are significant players. It almost certain IMO that the eventual buyer of Amerisur will be in the list somewhere

"Twenty-six companies are likely to pre-qualify for bidding, Morelli said, including four new companies from the United States, Canada and Norway. "

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-oil/colombia-hopes-to-sign-20-contracts-in-coming-oil-round-official-idUSKBN1WB2I4

Bay - Thanks for the reprimand, not quite sure what for. Sorry you are no longer my mate, It'll be difficult but I'll just have to get by without you in my corner.

One correction, as far as I know they have only drilled 1 duster, all other wells contacted flowing oil, non commercial as standalones may be, but Loto-1 in particular has potential to be brought on line if they figure out a way to manage the water.

Keep your chin up mate and stay calm, we could both get a win out of this yet and I'm not the enemy.

You haven't been listening to what's his name have you, you know that politician inciting hatred and division?

Amerisur shareholders should stay united in our goal of getting the best possible outcome.

About ONGC's latest tenderdoc, in addition to the revelation that they intend to drill 3 to 4 wells in the next 1 to 2 years there is also a preamble to the Scope of Work which somewhat contradicts things. Listing 8 wells minimum for possible back to back drilling in the next 1 to 3 years!

That sounds like the blue sky aspiration (for a decent operator what is easily possible) whereas the lower figure is the plan, make your own judgement.

Much more importantly is the list and it's order, specifically the first 4 names -Indico-2, Indico-3, Aguila-1X, Mariposa-2.
If the order is the proposed order of drilling and I think it is clearly a sensible assumption, 3 of the first 4 wells are relative bankers which potentially extend the reserves base and production massively, Aguila-1 is a surprise and maybe completes a geological picture before taking the plunge with Pavo Real-1 which originally should have been the next well.

Pavo Real-1 the potentially huge but I suppose more risky prospect is demoted to 5th position, we'll clearly never see most if any of these drilled but the uplift in production and reserves will likely make whatever we get for the block look woefully inadequate. Even Indico-1 and 2 should with any luck add 10000bpd to CPO-5 block production, it's a crying shame we've been done like a kipper here guys..

No point thinking about the other lost opportunities, any could have been company makers, Mirlo-1X, Alca-1X, Flamenco-1X etc. - though I guess potential buyers will assess their value in considering an offer price.

"Based on the seismic survey in CPO-5 block, a number of prospects have been identified for drilling in various parts of the block. The following future wells indicative names are Indico-2, Indico-3, Aguila-1X, Mariposa-2, Pavo Real-1, Mirlo-1X, Alca-1X, Flamenco-1X etc. Proposed wells have been identified preferably for back-to-back drilling within the next 1-3 years and the services may not be restricted to specific name of well but utilized for wells are on priority of work. The upcoming activity includes LTT of Sol-1 "

Roth1 - Spot on mate, the most logical solution, sold to 2 outfits with the credibility, presence and clout to bid a good price.

I'd take shares in either company in payment.

Wolster - ONGC where summoned to meet with the territory's government, as recall the governor was present and they where asked about progress. ONGC came up with some nonsense.

They are clearly a great partner as long as they are non-0perator, in that case it is hopeless and perhaps why the Indian government wants private enterprise to take a share (even control in a floatation) in the overseas arm of ONGC. ONGC are resisting the government's aspirations to break down ONGC's monopoly, it because they are so bureaucratic and slow, the government need to secure faster development to the Indian oil resources - I suppose we are being naïve to expect ONGC Videsh (overseas operations) to be any better.

The sale of Amerisur is looking more and more inevitable, but ONGC's actions don't help the sale price. One outcome that I would welcome if no one is prepared to stump up a good premium in cash, is some share swap perhaps with Gran Tierra or Geo Park that also leaves them as operator and ONGC with a minority share.

ONGC have just released a new tender doc for well testing services and their well drilling programme, though stated as a minimum, it is totally underwhelming, in fact pathetic in light of the massive opportunity. The programme of 3 to 4 wells in up to 2 years is pathetic by any standards and more importantly as they are back to back a couple of things follow, first, if Indico-2 is included, they may not be starting any time soon as back to back can't possibly take 2 years in that case and second there will only be 1 rig.

To not plan for accelerated operations on perhaps the most prospective block in Colombia is verging on criminal incompetence IMO. It really is pathetic when our peers drill wells for fun for next to nothing and payback is a matter of months.

I think everyone has (or should have) now sadly realised that our BoD and ONGC are not competent to develop assets in Colombia at anything other than a snails pace, I have reluctantly accepted Amerisur will newer blossom into a force to be reckoned with unless our BoD are ousted - something that is imperative if the sales process falls through for whatever reason. The plan covering the next up to 2 years is what I thought was to be this years plan, the minimum is actually 3 in 2 years, if Indico-2 was to spud imminently then even 4 wells b ack to back would surely only take us to the first half of next year. ONGC actually set themselves incredibly low success levels in the first place then fail to even meet those.

They say in scope introduction, Pg60:

"A minimum of 3-4 exploratory wells are planned for back-to-back drilling in the next 1-2 years for which plan is prepared for Long Term Testing/testing of the wells but same can be used in STT operations with necessary set of equipment and consequently the wells will be in production phase with same self-flow completion or artificial completion string. "

http://www.ongcvidesh.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tenderdoc-Well-testing2019-f.pdf

They have to commit to spending and take on blocks much less mature and therefore with more risk.

Comparisons are not credible as one of the blocks may be infinitely more valuable as others and ultimately worth as much as all 59 together - that's why it's an auction.

Buyers may feel CPO-5 is worth infinitely more than the 59 blocks or not worth a bid our sale is determine that, Occidental knew these blocks where coming up for sale when they did a deal on our Put blocks.

The Colombia government announced the auction of another 59 blocks, it will be interesting to see who is in the mix of bidders and if Amerisur will be in (are we still a contender for anything) there may be some great opportunities.

The companies that have expressed an interest will be named on 21st Oct, offers on"Do of Die" day.

"A final list of qualified bidders will be published on Oct. 21, the statement added, and companies will deposit initial offers on Oct. 31. "

https://www.reuters.com/article/colombia-oil/colombia-opens-59-blocks-for-bids-in-next-oil-auction-idUSL2N26910C

My preferred choice of partner is Geo Park every time for reasons I've made clear a number of times, thay are the real deal in Colombia, GTE are OK but they have had significant setbacks over the years and sacked Dana Coffield to refocus, IMO Geo Park offer the best router to cashing out at a premium to the offer price if we eventually have to accept shares in any offer.

I believe a share swap deal a price of x2 current SP would be fair i.e. 34p+. Without a good cushion a cash price should be sought, of course it doesn't matter a toss what I think.

Bay- you post some great stuff - but at times I wonder if get on the cider at night or perhaps something a little stronger, I think if this continues we'll all need something to rationale the irrational.

I'm interested your viewpoint so read your posts, but it's hard work - how the hell does George Smiley fit in! I never watched that particular drama but I assume the link is the intrigue and betrayal.

I think you are crediting ONGC with far too much guile.

There is another possibility, some technical or practical reason for ther delay, IMO our BoD have a habit or holding back news to bundle with some good stuff.