Member Info for Juxtapose

To elaborate on my earlier post, destitute.

Majid Shafiq was appointed to CEO in October 2018, with his first full season in 2019.

In a difficult environment, he managed to raise £45 million in a relatively non-dilutive way, sufficient to enable the active 3 well drilling program and keep the company going in this year, including performing essentials such as the survey, to keep momentum rolling.

2020 has kicked off with the survey, to be completed in Feb, and the data room already opened to try for the least dilutive form of financing, a farm out.

Along the way, there have been creative financing deals, including the latest collaboration with the drilling rig.

Judged by any rational metric, this is a sterling performance of a team determined to succeed.

There are/have been plenty of AIM swindles out there, such as Kefi with not a spade in the ground after 6 years, big salaries and bigger lies, BMR, Ctag and a raft of small oil companies funding management's lifestyle, but I3E has progressed steadily over the last 18 months, despite setbacks.

Nonsense, destitute.
This is a reasonably genuine company, with a decent discovery out of the 2019 drilling campaign and close to infra structure.
No final judgement can be made until progress on the farm out is disclosed.

The shares are largely in the hands of PIs, in nominee accounts: Lombard and Miton exited at an SP well above the current, which is why we know that even PIs largely have averages much above the current SP.

The volumes here are pocket money: the SP gets taken down, but generate insufficient selling to make the game worth the candle. My assumption on this manufactured SP is that the money is being made on spread betting?

That is all well and good, provided that everyone bought the "pizza" at 7 pounds, but that is not the case here: we have 7p on minuscule volume and we know that our largest shareholder paid 35p and many have averages over 30p.

The difficulty for the offeror is finding a price at which more than 50% of the shareholders (to gain control in a hostile bid) say yes and that is probably north of 20p.

In any company purchase, of course, the junior loan note debt has to be added in and at that point, this is no longer "for nothing"; RRE/Repsol would be looking at a £40/50 million investment. They might just prefer to take a % for funding an appraisal well at $13 million: less reward, but less risk, but that all goes back to the size of the prise and COS.

It certainly screams of market manipulation.

Neither yesterday nor today, could I buy within the spread and yet there should have been stock available, given the sells which are taking down the SP.

That said,we are in a very odd market at the moment, with all semblance of rationality fled.

Wholly agree with you Ricky.

Even options starting at current SP would be more acceptable than these ridiculous freebies: that then aligns with shareholder rewards, which should be the raison d'etre for any publicly quoted company.

That said, rationally, this is not significant dilution and does not materially alter the potential here in a POG environment: see the bigger investment picture.

The exploration program with 3 rigs in operation will be a game changer, particularly the conversion of existing resources to reserves that can be included in a mine plan.

Does anyone have a decent contact with the company? Do we know if they are going to do any presentations in the near future?

Tony

Liberator 1 was the lesser target.

Serenity, is of far greater value and the immediate capital requirement to drill an appraisal well could be less than $10 million, particularly if the drilling company will defer payment.

Post the Serenity discovery, I would have said that the future looks rosier.

What has become apparent over time is that the market simply does not understand the company and is therefore unable to value it. That is where the opportunity lies.

E-Al.
You are confusing institutional investors and nominee accounts, but the general point is right, as even the majority of PIs with holdings of any significance will be at averages much above this current pittance of an SP. FWIW, I don't see a company takeover as likely, but never say never!

At this point, given the SP, it is exceptionally high reward with much diminished risk.

And if it trades again at 60/80p and £1 a share?

OH MY GOODNESS.........................

Tony

I covered that point in my earlier post.

The greatest threat to I3E realizing its full potential is a hostile bid and the purchase of the company.

If that does not happen, then the disconnect to which you refer is the real value opportunity and if it does happen, the current SP is an opportunistic purchase.

The junior loan probably is the best deterrent against any such bid at this stage and a farm out on sensible terms is the most likely near term outcome.

The recently discussed deferred drilling costs on re the drilling ship may also be a factor in %s. If we "cover" a share of the costs in that way, then the farminee takes less risk and therefore a smaller share.

Majid seems to be a wily old fox on financing .

The reason why no one is following your logic is because it is non applicable in these circumstances.

On a farm out, the "pizza" is the value of the specific prospect and not the market cap of I3E.

In this case, there are three "pizzas" and none has yet been cut into any slices: that is the farm out process.

What the participants are looking at is the size of the prize and its COS.

At the appraisal stage, farm outs are generally less punitive, particularly, as in this case, where it is not a "distressed sale" thanks to the £5 million raise in December, to carry them through this current year.

"The Company is making good progress in its farm-out process to fund a 2020 appraisal drilling program on its assets in Blocks 13/23c in the UK North Sea. The data room is now open and companies are actively evaluating the opportunity. i3 will update the market as discussions progress."

Why waste time discussing what is NOT being proposed?

Of far more interest would be to discuss possible participants and terms and I would not rule out a sale of the whole company, given the current market cap.

Well, despite the sells, they won't fill my small limit order at 8p, so, not much excess liquidity.

The spread is ridiculous.

Perhaps his post was ironical?

There comes a point on a troll infested bb where sanity or sarcasm are the appropriate response!

Everyone knows that the drill locations on Liberator were at the behest of the funders, the purpose being to prove up the geology of the licence area as a whole and the second well was key in corroborating the migration path to Liberator West.

On Serenity, there were no constraints: e voila, the discovery.

As the data room is already open, it should not be long now, before there is news: after all, RRE and Repsol already have detailed working knowledge of the structures on their adjacent Tain prospect and so the Serenity data should be easier for them to interpret/extrapolate.

It is difficult to see that Tain can now be progressed without an appraisal well, so there will be pressure on RRE/Repsol tp make a decision, particularly if there are any other interested parties either on Serenity or Liberator West.

Without a doubt, raising that £5 million at 35p from Bybrook considerably strengthened management's position in negotiations, giving them cash to cover the essential survey and ongoing overheads beyond the date when RRE/Repsol need to finalize their 2020 plan.

Ngn

A good interview underlining the "HUM" case: throwing off cash and so able to take advantage of opportunities out there (including exploration of all opportunities close to the existing production facility and that may include the nearby CORA asset).

It will be interesting to see what deal is done for Dugbe.

We are doing the extensive site survey of all areas to give the company the best chance of attracting a farm out from a party who wants to get on with the job in the 2020 season and therefore needs the permitting process completed. Time is money and so "drill ready" has greater value.

In the case of Tain in particular, it opens the door to being part of the Repsol/RRE program which is planned for later this year and by covering the whole remaining area, it gives complete flexibility to accommodate any appraisal plan.

"This ongoing operation will cover the remaining areas of Serenity and Liberator West's Minos High structures not covered by i3's 2019 site survey to ensure that all potential drilling locations remain targetable during the Company's planned 2020 drilling campaign, which remains subject to funding. The survey will enable i3 to complete the necessary permitting process for further appraisal drilling on its licences, expected to commence late summer."

These shares are predominantly in the hands of PIs (mainly in nominee accounts): iis have been bailing the sector as a whole and only Bybrook has a holding in excess of the 3% thresh hold (their recent acquisition at 35p) along with a couple of directors at 6% each (a decent stake and they must be hurting at the current price).

What we have here is a significant drop on very small volume: mostly PIs selling on fear.

Obviously, the elephant in the room is funding and that will be eliminated by a farm down, most likely on Serenity, simply because of the proximity/connection to Tain and the immediacy of the development planned there.

"With the highly successful Serenity discovery and remaining potential at Liberator, the Company has begun planning a mid-2020, multi-well appraisal programme and is simultaneously conducting a farm-down process of its licences to potentially fund the 2020 drilling campaign".

Those of us who are still adding to our holdings are doing so on the expectation that news of any such farm down will return the market cap to a figure reflecting the real value of the assets and that will see a share price many multiples of the current SP.

iphammer

Aim is a casino, particularly for the new investor: many of the companies are gravy trains for the elite, raising cash from investors to fund a life style.

This share needs to be flagged up as high risk, high reward (worth multiples of the current SP, if they can sort finance and the Serenity appraisal goes well).

To get started, you need to set up a share dealing account with a broker, either traditional or online: names such as Hargreaves Lansdown, Halifax Share dealing or X-O ltd. Very much like setting up a bank account, with security checks to ensure that the funds are not proceeds of money laundering. Once you have the put funds in the account, you can then start dealing, buying shares such as I3E.

The main difference between traditional and online brokers is that the former act on your behalf and give you advice, whereas the latter, you just go online, into your own account and do your own sells and buys.

It is a tough game and some knowledge of the industry and a financial background help. There are those who use technical analysis and trade on "patterns", disclaiming the need for any knowledge. I believe that there are courses available for traders, to point up those skills.

Good luck if you go ahead and be aware that the AIM "casino" sobriquet is entirely justified : it is a form of gambling and you should never risk what you cannot afford to lose: tragic stories told over the years (currently, SXX has wiped out a lot of the locals where the project was situated: a horrible outcome for many decent folk).

The Vox markets interview with DB added some colour to the RNS.

The emphasis is that the plan is conservative, being the base case on reserves in the open pit. The intention is to augment, improve and extend.

A million oz, in resources sitting outside that reserve plan. Committing heavily to exploration this year to convert that, plus new targets and underground studies.

Currently mobilizing drilling rigs and so news flow from exploration.

The key is to produce more, which, because of the heavy fixed costs, further reduces AISC.

They also are focusing on operational delivery: reliable and consistent and operational efficiency: plant and fleet etc.

He does bang the drum a lot about deleveraging.

Unhedged mentioned, in an environment which is good for gold.

The takeaway is that this is cheap at its current market cap and has massive upside from exploration potential, translating into LOM and NPV.

An entirely sane plan of a maturing management team: milk the cash cow.