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I commented on the oil price being kept within an acceptable band for the market players.

Well in the last couple of days it's has risen by around 3P whatsoever, Helps support my point that a stable oil price is better than one which wobbles excessively - there is now the option for the bashers to pressure the SP if/when the oil price tends back to $72.

My point is that stability is the most important thing for oilies to build market confidence, and we've had it for months.

I would be happy with any oil price above $70/barrel for the next 2 or three years - Amerisur should be very successful under that scenario. if they pull their finger out..

"India Looks To List The Overseas Unit Of Its Largest State Oil Firm"

The Indian government want the national oil company to sell it's overseas subsidiary ONGC Videsh (our partner).

I'm sure if it happens it will be very slow and the company that emerges will be a much more nimble outfit - might even divest of it's Colombia assets.

Interesting times, who knows what opportunities are being offered in the region.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Oil-Prices-Rise-After-API-Reports-Inventory-Draw-Across-The-Board.html

The SP will move to where it's driven, eventually.

Unfortunately there is insufficient demand to swamp the selling - more patience required.

As I've said many times, it's all down to our BoD, they need to give investors more reason to buy at higher prices. All problems are down to their failings and ongoing failure to recognise it and make changes to put the company on track.

There is no reason to believe Indico-1 will not spud in August except that ONGC are generally slow, all should now be in place.

As far as Put-8 is concerned, that again could spud any time, there has been no explanation for the delay, we simply assumed it was because our partner is divesting of it's interests. The well was supposedly only delayed because the rig was tied up on another job for a week or two. If they are dragging their heels our BoD should really challenge them - as partners they have a duty to get on with it or hand over the operatorship.

So though unlikely, there is no reason all wells should no be drilling concurrently.

to sell now (do we have direction?) if anyone wants a lucrative exit.

Take with a pinch of salt the stocks build/draw figures from the US that are used to drive to oil price to where there key players and governments want it every week - at best it is unreliable and IMO contrived in the short term.

More importantly IMO are the broader factors, but even those are manipulated.

- Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria and others either have or will have falling production.
- Question marks hang over the Russian and Saudi alliances ability to increase and fill gaps, most critically, sustain any increased production.
- None of the market players wants a very high oil price
- The US shale patch has a huge question mark over it's ability to maintain it's upward trajectory - there are many articles pointing out numerous factors which make it all sound like a bit of a Ponzi scheme.
- The often overlooked deadline 1st Jan 2020 (16months away) ate for ships to comply with low sulphur fuel oil requirement, I reckon companies will be switching sooner and traders/dealers adjusting stocks so the impact should be felt sooner. The agreement dates back to 2008 I believe and the option to extend the deadline has passed, it will supposedly increase demand.

The above and many more factors are used daily to justify a higher or lower oil price, but IMO the evidence suggests the powers players in the game are happy with the oil price in it's current range and will pull it back if it deviates too far. On that basis I think Amerisur are now very safe with financing the completion of their development programme, no one ever raises it as an issue now as they should have generated a pile of cash already.

The really uncontrollable drivers here I suppose are the unknowns, a war military or economic conflict could change everything, natural/politically disaster etc. Those could send the oil price soaring or into collapse. For us it is more than academic interest, events could make or lose us a lot of money. I have actually been very pleased with the steady oil price as I believe erratic movement, even spikes, helps shorters crush the SP.

2018 may have been a bad year so far for operational progress but the oil price wobbling about at $72/barrel for the last few session has been a great boost.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Markets-Are-In-For-A-Bumpy-Ride.html

Ticking away, and despite the long delays, arguably due to the incompetence of the glorious BoD we all love, the time to spud 1, 2 or even 3 wells is rapidly approaching.

Any further delays on the N-sands well seems inconceivable, barring a major new factor - bid for the company, war or natural disaster etc. It is imminent

So Bigsmoke, though the SP may be lacking direction at the moment, it will get some very soon, hopefully from the fact the company is actually make a start on the drilling programme. On paper shareholders should be very optimistic but our BoD have delivered disappointment after disappointment recently and let be honest have shattered confidence - as they restore some faith then the SP will gain momentum.

Lets hope the last 4 months of the year are a complete reversal of the first 8 - I'm a long term shareholder but even as a punt this is a great option IMO.

Have been looking at the super optimistic MATD BB this morning and it's amazing the support generated for a company that has so far found nothing - the difference is they have actually got on with their programme as have many of our peers.

Spookily Frontera have released an update on their well which I commented on at the end of last week.

Looks likely a success subject to testing, their target was the Mirador which is one of our targets on CPO-5. The success rate in Colombia Llanos is excellent Llanos-34 in particular but all wells on CPO-5 contacted oil, I'm very optimistic, just wish our partner would make a start the suspense is driving me mad.

Frontera found a 356ft gross thickness, it will be interesting to see what the oil bearing thickness and flow rate is, bearing in mind it is a secondary target for ONGC.

"The Acorazado-1 exploration well reached a total MD of 15,470 ft into the target formation where we recorded hydrocarbon shows in a Mirador Reservoir section with 356 ft of gross thickness."

Yes the contrived sales at the beginning and end of the day to set the tone are really annoying, but until we see something from our BoD to make it pointless it will continue, especially as the market is in a quiet period.

What has annoyed me for some time is that the market continues for well over an hour after official closing to set up the next day for the boys. There is manipulation going on IMO and it has nothing to do with RH. I have a suspicion that many of the buy and sells have the same origin

It's up to our BoD to break the cosy set-up enjoyed by the company's adversaries, and use the weapons they have I they arsenal or at least let it be known they might - a share buy-back option granted to them at the AGM is useless if never considered and they should not waste shareholder time voting on it again if they do not consider using it.

I thought they must have completed their tender process for the 3 holes and potential for a fourth by now, but oh no, no chance.

They have released another tender for "Hiring of Well Testing Surface Facilities and Manpower to carry out initial testing of two exploratory wells Sol-1 and Aguila-1 in CPO-5 Block,".

No effect the drilling schedule for the first well Indico-1 thank god, but it really IMO shows how pathetically inefficient and clunky ONGC's processes are. In light of their constraints as a nationalised industry they would be much better sub-contracting the entire process as a job lot. There is no way the ultra-formal piecemeal end to end process can lead to the cheapest and most timely execution of what logically must be a flexible, dynamic programme advised by the results of each well.

I mention end to end because rather optimistically ONGC mention the possibility of "parallel drilling", Surely ludicrous? How ridiculous is that for them, but by including the term the contractor must surely have to include a risk charge for extra staff and equipment.

They say:
"ONGC VL shall notify the contractor at any time within currency of the contract, to mobilize the services for the second well in case of back to back drilling wells or parallel wells drilling, giving notice for mobilization."

Our BoD should raise concerns, as Amerisur will be paying part of the cost for something ludicrously cumbersome (presumably we are being cross-charged for ONGC staff to operate the process), yet they don't even appear to have skilled local operational staff. If our team where not so bad at getting things done I would suggest we should take over, I'm sure I read in the distant past Amerisur where going to take over some of the work. Presumably we were also charged for the costs of the aborted Sol-1 tender process.

Irrespective, I'm expecting spud news very soon, even ONGC and Amerisur can't take much longer!

ONGC also say:
"The planned broad schedule of activities at wells Aguila – 1X & Sol-1 is as given below:
 Zones of interest are to be selected based on the analysis of formation samples during drilling and cased/open hole logging findings in Une and Mirador formations.
 Tentatively two objects (one primary object and one secondary object) are expected to be tested in each well, however, at the discretion of the operator and depending up on the testing results of the object under testing, testing operations can be terminated earlier without testing remaining objects.
 The two objects will be tested independently layer by layer. Primary object will be activated with diesel for self-flow production. In case of non-having good results, ESP application will be used and second object will be tested with ESP only.
 Zone isolation will be done using RBP (Retrievable Bridge Plug).
 Decision of abandonment of the well or completion with open end 3½” EUE tubing or install of suitable completion will be taken by ONGC VL based on

Indico-1 must surely be near ready to spud now, it's over a year since the Mariposa -1 completion and they had actually had tenders to follow on with Sol-1 at that time but for some inexplicable reason didn't bother.

If I where a sceptic and it were any other country other than India, I might start to think that they don't really want to progress.

Anyway, the tender for operational staff closed a few weeks ago, preparations are supposedly complete so, any day now.

It would also be interesting to hear what the plans for Mariposa are, perforate more ground may be and how it is performing wrt expectations - perhaps they'll cover it in the interims.

Indico-1 must surely be near ready to spud now, it's over a year since the Mariposa -1 completion and they had actually had tenders to follow on with Sol-1 at that time but for some inexplicable reason didn't bother.

If I where a sceptic and it were any other country other than India, I might start to think that they don't really want to progress.

Anyway, the tender for operational staff closed a few weeks ago, preparations are supposedly complete so, any day now.

It would also be interesting to hear what the plans for Mariposa are, perforate more ground may be and how it is performing wrt expectations - perhaps they'll cover it in the interims.

Sort of (they are much bigger) drilled 36 wells in the first Q of 2018 and planned a similar number in Q2, I wonder why they didn't get flooded out in Colombia?

Anyway they have operations in the Llanos and I was interested in one well being drilled in Llanos-25, mainly due to it's depth and cost $35m to $50m - what are they looking for?

They have just released their Q2 update and for the well "•Acorazado-1 exploration well in the Llanos 25 block has reached total depth of 15,470 feet, a week ahead of schedule "

First question is what the hell is up with our team that can't get anything drilled, even started never mind finish ahead of schedule, the second of interest to me (alone maybe) is what they find. The general view I believe is that on many blocks in Colombia including some of Amerisur's there may be deeper reserves that have never been considered. At 35-50m dollars a go its hardly surprising. I'm wondering if companies start to test deeper and find big deposits there may be multi-national interest generated - nothing wrong with wishful thinking.

Fonterra are expecting logging results by the end of August.

Here's another variation on the news with Shore Capital also mentioned.

I's this current or a rehash of old news anyone? I can never tell with website that aggregate news.

http://bharatapress.com/2018/08/12/amerisur-resources-amer-receives-house-stock-rating-from-shore-capital/

The link dated a couple of days ago suggests Peel Hunt have reiterated it's HOLD rating on Amerisur.

Now that's sorted, I'm not going to sell. lol

https://www.fairfieldcurrent.com/2018/08/13/peel-hunt-reiterates-add-rating-for-amerisur-resources-amer.html

Bay - your comment

"Larrea announced that, at the end of this month, the Intracampos bidding round will be announced under the participation modality for exploration and production of 8 oil fields in the Amazon region, which estimated an additional investment of close to $ 1,000 million. I can't work out is this the start or the end bid date"

I take it to mean the end as we had the process started some while ago, but it is a little ambiguous and most of South America seem to operate on elasticated time. It is likely that the announcement will simply be a naming of the successful bidders and prices as per the current release format.

At $1000m for 8 fields I assume they are all big money deals, so I suspect on top of these there will be various smaller of less appealing to multiple bidders that could be negotiated separately. That's where I hoped Amer could pick up something that had particular synergies unavailable to others.

I'm not well up on all the block available but the block immediately over the border where the pipeline crosses the river seemed to have great potential for some sort of deal. Halliburton took it on with a promise to revive it, but there has been no news from there as far as I know so I assume it is still struggling. My view was that the block would maybe make a great location for a storage facility (perhaps there already is one) for the Colombian oil and ensure efficient/maximum transfer through the pipeline. Details are so scant it's difficult to determine what would be useful.

Perhaps our management should/may be having conversations with Halliburton and the national oil company as we don't necessarily need to take control of a block - a similar deal to the pumping station might serve everyone.

We seem to fall in a heap every time there is a problem with the oil clearance system - take a look at the variance in oil pipeline throughput especially monthly maximum for evidence, I would have thought acquiring cost effective storage capacity is an important gaol to maximise oil clearance, clearing the stuff .has only dropped off the horizon as a serious issue because production has temporarily stalled.

It's all guesswork, pie in the sky thinking though, and depends how astute our BoD are.

Bay - some progress on investment but more details and assignments soon, another 1000m investment expected.

All this Ecuador stuff may be out of the scope of Amer though, it's big money, unless there is something no one
wants or we partner up.

New article
https://www.icslatam.com/ecuador-will-invest-more-than-1400-million-in-eight-oil-fields?lang=en

All our peers have benefitted from the improved oil price Geo Park and Parex already mentioned but Ecopetrol have also just (yesterday) reported a 170% increase in profits for the second quarter.

We should see a very substantial improvement from Amerisur, they have also been exposed to the improvement and IMO should out-perform the national oil company and bigger peers. Financial performance has been kept totally secret and I hope will be a significant catalyst for investors to start to notice Amerisur. Not long to wait now.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecopetrol-results/colombias-ecopetrol-net-profit-rises-170-percent-on-higher-crude-idUSKBN1KZ2G2

Started to sink into the dark side there, I needed to regain my composure and take comfort from the company song, from Annie of course. Got JW through the dark times when it wouldn't stop raining, loves to sing along to it with the crew, something to behold.

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun!

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
'Til there's none!

When I'm stuck a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh!

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

I love ya Tomorrow!
You're always
A day
A way!

Extract: “Half way into the year — and our better-than-expected performance again is fueling an acceleration and expansion of our original work program,” said CEO James F. Park. “This means we can invest more in the second half of the year to produce more oil and gas and to make more money and build a better company for our shareholders.”

Great stuff, I wonder what our CEO's comments will say in our "Half way into the year" update, Jam, Jam and more lovely Jam tomorrow of course, in fact so much Jam I guess Malcy will be compelled to tell us how tasty it will be when the sun, moon and stars align, we'll see soon.

Sorry for bringing down the tone guys, but every time I read about another outfit doing great it being home how massively we are missing out, not on Jam tomorrow of course.

Full text:
"Latin America-focused oil and gas company GeoPark reported Thursday a 37% surge in second-quarter production, thanks to a significant output boost in Colombia.

Total oil and gas production rose to 35,870 barrels of oil-equivalent per day (Boe/d), from 26,123 Boe/d a year earlier. In Colombia, production was up 33%, to 27,940 Boe/d, Kallanish Energy reports.

The Colombian growth was primarily attributed to successful appraisal and development drilling in the Tigana and Jacana oilfields in the onshore Llanos 34 block, which represented 95% of Colombian production in Q2 2018.

Overall production benefited from new output from the recent Argentina acquisition and increased volumes in Brazil and Chile, GeoPark said.

The company pumped 38% more crude oil in the quarter than last year, at an average of 30,249 barrels per day (Bpd), while gas production was up 34% to 33.7 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d).

“Half way into the year — and our better-than-expected performance again is fueling an acceleration and expansion of our original work program,” said CEO James F. Park. “This means we can invest more in the second half of the year to produce more oil and gas and to make more money and build a better company for our shareholders.”

Park added all the work GeoPark has done over the last 15 years to build “the strongest platform across Latin America” continues to pay off. “Our deep foundation keeps us going and growing — both in tough times and now with stronger prices providing a wind-at-our-back,” he said.

The firm posted a net profit of $5.5 million in the quarter, recovering from a loss of $1.1 million in Q2 2017. Revenue more than doubled, to $159.3 million, pushed by higher prices and higher sales volumes. Operating costs averaged $8.50/Boe in the quarter, but only $3.90/Bbl in the Llanos 34 block.

As is the case with most E&P companies, GeoPark’s earnings were boosted by higher crude prices. Its realized average oil price was up 71%, to $57.20/Bbl from $33.40/Bbl in Q2 2017. Natural gas prices averaged $5.10 per thousand cubic feet — a 7% decline y-o-y."

http://www.kallanishenergy.com/2018/08/10/colombia-boosts-geoparks-