Member Info for KeithOz

CEG taken out by Sintana @ 16.61p, a 44% premium to the last close of 11.5p.

@Dakad. It's come directly from Paul Griffiths. As kindly pointed out elsewhere, see 2024 Annual Report, p.4, bottom two paragraphs.

https://wp-predatoroilandgas-2024.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2025/04/POGH-2024-Annual-Report-15-April-25-FINAL-fully-audited-executed-signed.pdf

I don't have immediate access to remuneration data for main market listed companies of PRD's size, but the median base income for a CEO of an AIM company last year was £366K, and total remuneration package of £973K.

https://www.bdo.co.uk/getmedia/2b3e2373-52d8-49fd-b881-b141ab0e05d4/BDO-AIM-100-Directors-Remuneration-Report-March-2025.pdf

In May 1933, Standard Oil Co was allowed to start exploration. The Americans first had a look at three different promising locations, before deciding on the Dammam Hills.

"On April 30, 1935, it was decided to start work by digging Dammam Well No. 1; following seven months of uncertainty and despair, the well produced a powerful gush of gas and some oil when the drilling depth reached around 700 meters, but an equipment failure forced the drilling crew to stop the well's flow and blocked it with cement, and Dammam Well No. 2 produced better results."

"When the well was tested in June 1936, 335 barrels per day flowed from it. A week following that test, and after acid treatment, production of oil flowing from the well stood at 3,840 barrels per day, which encouraged drilling of Dammam Wells 3, 4, 5 and 6 without waiting to confirm that production will be in commercial quantities or recognizing the size of the field discovered. A decision was then issued in July to prepare Dammam Well No. 7 as a deep test well."

"By the end of 1936, the number of Saudi workers had increased to 1,076, in addition to 62 non-Saudi workers. Things were supposed to be going normally, but, unexpectedly, Dammam Well No. 1 failed after a depth of more than 975 meters. Meanwhile, Dammam Well No. 2 was found to be moist, which meant that it produced water mainly, as water production was 8 or 9 times higher than its oil volume, and the production of Dammam Well No. 3 did not exceed 100 barrels of heavy oil per day, with 15% of this production comprising water. Wells 4, 5, and 6 were proven dry."

Oil was not flowed in commercial quantities until 1938, despite the vast allocation of manpower and financial resource from what was then the largest oil company in the world.

(Source: https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/625280#:~:text=Wells%204%2C%205%2C%20and%206,the%20work%20camp%20in%20Dammam. )

Considering PG, essentially a one-man band, has spent just £16.4M in Morocco in 4 years (Source: Note 7 of June 30th 2025 accounts), I think he is doing rather well.

In one corner, hiding beneath green boxes, we have 32 individuals whose spelling and grammar suggest most never completed secondary education, and whose real identities, qualifications and experience have been carefully concealed.

In the other corner, we have Mr Paul Griffiths.

* He holds a BSc Geology degree from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, specialising in Oil & Gas. That would have been my own first choice for a geology course, being rated the best in the world, but I couldn't afford the cost of studying & living in London.

* His MSc, also from Imperial, was on Late Mesozoic seismic sequence stratigraphy of N.E. Libya - of particular relevance to PRD's Morocco acreage.

* He initially worked for the Libyan National Oil Corporation - many of whose oil & gas fields are sub-salt Triassic.

* He then worked for Amoco Mediterranean, Enterprise Oil, and Arabian Gulf Oil, all evaluating hydrocarbon prospects across North Africa with similar geology to Guercif.

* He discovered Tendrara, which again is a Triassic sub-salt play.

* He has been working on the Guercif Basin since around 2012, when it was with Island O&G, and put his own money in to continue work between its relinquishment by Island and the acquisition by Predator.

* He set up Pathfinder Resources, which he later sold to Kosmos Energy.

* Has been MD/CEO/Chairman of Island, Fastnet & Predator, plus has much hands-on experience of Irish oil evaluation.

In conclusion, he may have a personality that certain under-achievers find a little disagreeable, but has unmatched relevant experience for the current set of opportunities that Predator is working on.

My own, non-AI, interpretation of MOU-5, is that the borehole was in the wrong place due to mis-reading the seismic signature of salt as high-porosity carbonate - both have similar seismic conduction velocities. So instead of finding reservoir-quality material at the expected depth, they found salt, with the real carbonate beneath having a porosity and permeability too low to hold meaningful levels of hydrocarbons.

On the plus side, there is a very high likelihood that good quality carbonate reservoir exists updip of MOU-5, in other parts of what is a very large structure, and this will be gas-bearing. In the immediate vicinity of MOU-5, the salt diapir to the ESE, the NW migration of that salt to a position above the drilled carbonate, and the autochthonous continuous layer below, has isolated a block of the Jurassic carbonate from gas migration.

Given: 1). The presence of Helium in MOU-5, 2). The detection of methane at surface around the Moulouya River, 3). Hyperspectral satellite data (which I have not personally evaluated) showing large amounts of methane and oil over a considerable area above and around MOU-5, and 4). Every borehole (PRD's and historic) in and around the Guercif area has been gas-charged to some extent, it's my view that there are plenty of hydrocarbons somewhere below, most probably the deeper Triassic.

Again, my opinion only, is that MOU-5 has not been p&a'd because they want to drill down into the Triassic, but only after obtaining a clearer picture using 3D seismic or other survey method. The main Triassic reservoirs across North Africa (and at nearby Tendrara) are the highly-prolific TAGI (Trias Argilo-Gréseux Inférieur). These will not only very likely be present beneath Guercif, but will be at shallower depth than elsewhere. This means that not only are they easier and cheaper to drill, but will have suffered less compaction - resulting in a higher level of porosity and permeability, therefore holding more hydrocarbons. I have stated this opinion on lse and on X for a good couple of years, and have not seen anything to date that contradicts this view. Hopefully we will hear more from PG next week.

If anyone has a couple of hours to spare and a plentiful supply of espresso, this article (downloadable free as a PDF) gives an overview of borehole sand management techniques:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288809656_Practical_approaches_to_sand_management

@Awacker. Assuming PRD do need MOU-6 (we still don't know if perforation of MOU-3 has cleaned up), then yes, I think (and it is only my opinion) that they have all the necessary information to get it right.

* Depths, thicknesses, petrology & mineralogy of every horizon.

* The reservoir pressures where there is gas, so drilling mud density can be precisely balanced, thus minimising formation damage.

* Optimum mud composition for coping with fine unconsolidated sand and expanding clays.

* Best drilling speed for preventing washouts.

* Whether to have a normally cased hole with explosive perforation, or use slotted casing in an open hole.

* What secondary prevention techniques are necessary, such as gravel packing, sand filters/screens, polymer treatment to stabilise & consolidate the fine sand, and if using explosive perforation, adjusting the shaped charge for the optimal tunnel characteristics.

Considering they didn't know any of the above before drilling MOU-3, but still were very close to achieving gas flow, this time round I am very optimistic.

In my post yesterday, I highlighted some historical data, previously posted on X, showing that the area around Guercif was highly prospective for hydrocarbons. I link some more below. PRD drilling over the last four years has intersected numerous horizons, some tens of metres thick, of highly porous and permeable sands, containing high saturation levels of overpressured gas (at higher pressures than you would expect for the depth). It is clear that these horizons extend over a very large area, so little chance that this is just 'residual gas' that some here would like you to believe.

The issue PRD is trying to resolve is an engineering problem, not one of geology. The very nature of these sand reservoirs means that although they are ideal for retaining huge volumes of gas, they are difficult to drill and flow. High porosity and permeability not only allow for lots of gas, but makes it easy for drilling fluids to penetrate and cause formation damage. Compaction and plasticisation can occur when using explosive perforation methods. The texture and friability of the sands can cause clogging by fine particles when gas flows out of them into the well bore.

In the next couple of weeks, we hope to hear about the design of the MOU-6 well, to be drilled from the existing MOU-3 drill pad. I suspect it will incorporate one or more of slotted casing, sand filters and gravel packing. All of these engineering techniques have been widely used to overcome exactly the issues that PRD have experienced.

As I've said before, if the geology is wrong it takes millions of years to get it right. If the engineering is wrong, it can usually be sorted in a few months.

More background stuff:

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1825787518954123292

This summarises a 2006 Geo-Microbial Technologies soil seepage survey over Morocco's Guercif Basin licences, conducted for prior license holder TransAtlantic Petroleum, where hydrocarbon ratios in areas around the historical GRF-1 and MSD-1 wells matched signatures suggesting deep-sourced oil, gas, and condensate.

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1919550166308159617

A 1936 Institute of Petroleum Journal excerpt documenting oil seeps and early drilling at Tizroutine, a site within PRD's Guercif licence area. Historical records describe oil flow to surface in 1926 after shallow drilling to 700 meters, indicating early identification of hydrocarbon potential in the region. This is the 100-year old drilling technology:

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1504653923541393408

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1825785305678623107

This shows the seismic profile and drilling log from a 1972 ELF borehole, GRF-1, on the Guercif licence. These show missed gas pay zones that correlate with strong seismic amplitudes. ELF were looking for oil, but appear to have found gas, which was ignored at the time since gas was of no commercial interest in the 70's.

@Clive. While recent presentations & RNSs should be your primary information source, @Oldslow refers to some background info I posted on X some time back. Since this is mixed in with pictures of cats & kangaroos, you might find these links to the visuals useful. X limits the amount of text per post, so I have expanded the explanation here.

🦖 Natural gas potential.

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1835948790110691562

The post shows a 2D seismic interpretation from PRD's Guercif Basin project in Morocco, displaying multiple bright gas horizons in stacked Neogene sands, Jurassic carbonates and Triassic sands along seismic line 03-ML-06.

You can see that in Sept 2024, I noted visible structures including salt diapirs and anhydrite layers acting as top seals, and suggested their role in trapping gas in both Jurassic carbonates and underlying Triassic reservoirs. This was not mentioned by PRD until March 2025.

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1720617262783008771

This highlights the exceptionally high geothermal gradient in the Guercif Basin - up to 110°C per km, far exceeding the global average of 25-30°C/km - accelerating hydrocarbon maturation and enabling gas formation at shallower depths than typical basins.

The accompanying image depicts a standard "oil and gas window" chart, emphasizing how local conditions compress these thermal stages for efficient resource generation.

Here's a map of relevant infrastructure around Guercif:

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1884730000454439321/photo/1

🦖 Helium potential.

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1899250088582738385

This study was presented at IECMS in 2020 by Boufkri et al. It focuses on integrating and processing aeromagnetic data from three separate airborne surveys to generate unified magnetic anomaly maps for North-Eastern Morocco, a region with significant potential but limited surface exposure due to thick sedimentary cover.

The primary goal is to delineate hidden structural features—such as deep faults and magnetic sources—that could guide exploration for subsurface resource trapping, including potential hydrocarbon or helium accumulations in basins like Guercif,

The aeromagnetic anomaly map shows magnetic highs (red zones) around Guercif, as potential structural traps for helium generated from uranium/thorium-rich basement rocks. In the Guercif Basin, the sub-circular P1 anomaly and NE-SW AZ suggest basement highs and fault traps, potentially sealing hydrocarbons or helium, aligning with traces found in PRD's nearby wells (MOU-3/5).

https://x.com/KQuick20704342/status/1693604211555254335

Self-explanatory, ties in with the above.

"The 2021 Columbus Energy annual report states that newly-reprocessed seismic data has indicated the possibility of deep structures beneath the Trinidad Southwest peninsula oilfields, now under PRD control, analogous to those in the adjacent East Venezuela Basin, that could contain 230 MMBbl of oil. How realistic do you consider this number?"

Source:

p.10, https://cegplc.com/app/uploads/2021/09/262031-CEG-AR-Web.pdf

The sudden arrival of so many new posters determined to undermine the value of PRD's assets and ridicule the work of Paul Griffiths appears not to be random. They coincide with another tiresome and poorly written article from Tom Winnifrith: "predator-oil-gas-and-another-moroccan-flop-what-next-for-deranged-old-coot-paul-griffiths". Some of us here believe this is a coordinated strategy. This was published about him a few years ago, you can perhaps now substitute 'lse' for 'adfn':

"He uses multiple usernames on the ADVN bulletin boards. He writes a toxic offensive blog mostly full of sensationalist innuendo, accusations that even when proven to be incorrect are never retracted or apologised for. He seems to have a long-standing vendetta against Gulf Keystone petroleum shareholders, calling them muppets, m*r0ns and w@n*ers. He is accused of having little regard for objectiveness as he normally writes in concert with others for a shorting campaign, as their obedient puppy."

https://sharetipstersuncovered.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/serious-questions-regarding-tom-winnifrith-and-advfn/

You can make up your own minds as to who is more likely to be providing honest facts after reading a couple more such articles:

https://sharetipstersuncovered.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/rivington-street-holdings-bedroom-fantasy-to-corporate-catastrophe/

https://sharetipstersuncovered.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/tom-winnifrith-as-hitler/

When I posted a response to him on X a couple of years ago, politely pointing out some factual errors in his tweet about PRD, he blocked me and claimed that since I knew about his family background of mental illness (I didn't and still don't) he was going to report me to the Police for mental cruelty. Strange man. Needless to say, the hit squad from Interpol have yet to knock down my front door.

I have asked these questions for the IMC meeting:

1. For MOU-3 A-Sands, the large guns penetrated two casings and fully perforated the formation damage. So why are they not being used on other horizons where there is only one casing to penetrate?

2. Why has an acid wash not been used on MOU-3?

3. Since there is likely to be discontinuous and multi-level salt intrusion around Titanosaurus, would it not be better and more cost-effective to survey with FTG rather than 3D seismic?

4. What interest has been shown in the Titanosaurus data room, and when can we expect a response?

One of the techniques used for overcoming formation damage is acid wash. PG actually mentioned in a presentation a couple of years ago that this may need to be used. It was my understanding that this worked best in carbonate formations, but recent work using different blends of acids suggests this is an effective technique for sandstone reservoirs as well. This rather chemically-detailed paper may be of interest (translated from Arabic!):

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13202-017-0314-6#:~:text=Sandstone%20acidizing%20is%20extremely%20difficult,1)%20and%20feldspar.&text=%E2%80%9CSilicon%20tetra%20fluoride%20(SiF4,(Smith%20and%20Hendrickson%201965).

"Acidizing can be used instead of hydraulic fracturing in many cases like high permeability formations with loose packing, naturally fractured reservoirs and removing damage around wellbore." The authors give an overall success rate of 68% for a relatively cheap intervention, but caution that it is vital to adjust the composition of the acids in order to prevent counter-productive precipitation of unwanted minerals. They also state that problems increase in line with reservoir temperature - not an issue with the MOU-3 shallow A-Sands.

With shallow A-Sand reservoir material recovered from MOU-3 enabling exact analysis of the mineralogy, I would have thought the combined brains of SLB & Italfluid could come up with an appropriate solution worth giving a try if there has not been a significant pressure build.

Now where in that simply written and helpful article that I linked, did it say that a sidetrack well starts at the bottom of the primary borehole then drills horizontally and/or upwards? You are either unbelievably thick, or more likely, here just to stir up trouble. Unlike some, I have a life. No further responses to m0r*ns, # 31 in the green box.

For our resident 'experts' who seem to think that a sidetrack is a horizontal well, I suggest that you do some serious research before you advise others on how to invest in oil and gas exploration. Maybe get a Geology degree, then an MBA, spend some time actually working in the industry. If you don't have the intelligence or aptitude, to help you look a little less foolish, you could start here:

https://www.esimtech.com/what-is-sidetracking-drilling-in-oil-and-gas.html

We thank Toad of Toad Hall for their insightful analysis, which is specific in highlighting what they perceive to be the negatives and avoiding mention of the many positives.

Curious that they missed the biggest opportunity: "MOU-5 was suspended for potential later re-entry and side-tracking updip to further evaluate the Domerian carbonate bank and helium show and for potential deepening to the untested deeper Triassic structure beneath MOU-5".

In particular they seem to have missed the agreement with Vivo Energy, who are majority-owned by Vitol (2024 turnover of $331 billion), and in partnership with Shell (market cap £153 billion). Perhaps they should send them their analysis, and inform them that they have clearly not done their Due Diligence, and are barking up the wrong willow.

@Donalb. It's just Vivo. They had signed non-binding HoAs with CHAR in mid-2024 for both CNG from Loukos onshore and industrial gas from Anchois offshore. I haven't seen an announcement that the agreements with CHAR are now dead, but assume they have expired due to events (or should I say non-events) at CHAR.

Vivo, who represent Shell, are #2 in Morocco after Afriquia Gaz, who now appear to be completely out of the picture. The good news is that Vivo have lots of cash, are fully-funding the Guercif CNG development, are prepared to provide finance for further exploration development, and are interested in other projects with PRD. Hardly surprising that the CHAR mob are unhappy about getting dumped at the altar.

LNG development partner in Morocco - Vivo Energy, distributors for Shell products:

https://www.vivoenergy.com/en/where-we-operate/morocco?tab=retail

Uptake of entire 22nd July placing:

https://cynosurecapital.com/

Occam's Razor again, simplest answer is most likely to be correct:

The share price has risen by 16% over two days, the shorting crew are defecating bricks.