The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
In circumstances where neither the balance of the fixed-conversion price conditional convertible notes is available, nor the Call exercised, BPC would need to rely on seeking alternative funding if it was to be able to complete the full intended program of work for 2021 (most particularly in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname). There can be no assurance that BPC would be successful in securing any such alternative funding, and if this were the case, the planned program of work in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname might need to be curtailed or deferred.
Chesh - I suppose this is a hazard of your job - is that you and Irene perchance? (in your dreams) ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nscm9f7Qf_g
JP200 - "The one thing that has struck me reading the Bahamas media is the murder rate is 25 times European rates, there's a lot of drugs and gangs, and very high road accident rates. Not quite the paradise some would have you believe."
Then you have Trinidad and Tobago.
https://www.looptt.com/content/report-trinis-unwilling-report-corruption
Starchild - The RNS issued today https://d1ssu070pg2v9i.cloudfront.net/pex/bahamas/2020/12/28122807/Court-Outcome-Update-28-12-20.pdf clarifies the latest situation as of today having heard from the court on or around 26/12.
It's not an RNS and it's not a Supreme Court Update it is a BPC update.
edgar222 - The wording of the BPC Rns means (to any lawyer) that the JR is over.
Which RNS would that be edgar?
http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/dec/24/bpc-faces-400k-extra-daily-costs-if-drilling-halte/
https://thenassauguardian.com/davis-says-govt-can-do-what-it-wishes-with-oil-deal/
https://www.oedigital.com/news/484055-the-bahamas-bpc-spuds-perseverance-1-offshore-well
Do the TROLLS never sleep.
There's a certain irony in that statement Harry.
Total Voting Rights
In satisfaction of certain existing outstanding professional fees, as well as commissions payable in respect of the Funding Agreement, the Company had agreed to make payment in the form of cash. Certain of the Company's advisers have agreed to receive ordinary shares in the Company in lieu of those cash fees. Consequently, the Company is issuing 37,500,000 ordinary shares in settlement of cash fees otherwise payable (the "Adviser Fee Shares").
Application will be made for the 412,500,000 ordinary shares issued under the Funding Agreement and the Adviser Fee Shares to be admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange ("AIM") and it is expected that admission will take place, and trading in those ordinary shares will commence from 8:00am on 17 December 2020 ("Admission").
Following Admission, BPC's issued share capital will consist of 4,503,048,549 ordinary shares, with each ordinary share carrying the right to one vote. The Company does not hold any ordinary shares in treasury. This figure of 4,503,048,549 ordinary shares may therefore be used by shareholders in the Company, as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.
The battle lines have been drawn as Bahamas Petroleum Company’s drillship makes its way to The Bahamas for a long-planned drilling of a single exploratory oil well 90 miles from Andros more than a decade after BPC signed license agreements with The Bahamas government.
On one side are those eager to find out whether black gold lies beneath our rich seabed. Many believe it holds the solution to our deeply worrying and rapidly burgeoning national debt, which places significant pressure on a government fresh out of viable ideas for a fiscal and economic turnaround.
On the other side of this highly emotive issue are those deathly afraid of the potential risks drilling poses to our delicate marine life, and those who believe The Bahamas, a nation which faces existential threats from climate change, is alarmingly headed in the wrong direction in pursuing oil drilling.
BPC says it has spent more than $110 million preparing for this activity for 10 years.
The Minnis administration in February 2020 granted BPC an environmental authorization (EA) under the Petroleum Act 2016. The drilling of the Perseverance #1 well is scheduled to take place late this month.
But a coalition of local and international environmental groups, concerned Bahamians and local businesses, called Our Islands, Our Future, wants to block the drilling.
https://thenassauguardian.com/will-bpc-be-stopped/
In September, China established a timetable for carbon neutrality that is like Mr. Bidens, potentially offering a bridge to more normal relations. Then, speaking to the UN General Assembly by video link, President Xi said that China’s objective is to “have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” He also argued that post-pandemic, the world should focus on a green recovery for the world economy, comments widely interpreted as meaning that his government and China’s capital markets and investors operating overseas, will in future pay much more attention to their impact on climate change.
These issues will come to a head when the next full UN climate summit takes place in Scotland in December 2021. There, all countries are expected to submit their new long-term goals, agree on rules for a carbon market, and agree on a process of implementation of the Paris Agreement.
For the first time in four years, there is the real hope that global warming may be addressed in a manner that provides long-term certainty for the Caribbean and other low lying and small island states.
Major hydrocarbon finds the continuing wave of prospecting across the Caribbean, growing environmental activism, concerns about post-COVID economic recovery, the willingness of the U.S. and China to commit to climate reduction targets, and a limited future for hydrocarbons; however, all suggest that the regional response requires greater definition and a new narrative.
In a strongly-worded statement, the company’s chief executive, Simon Potter, suggested that the activist environmental group was challenging “the sovereign right” of the Bahamian government to determine whether a potentially substantial natural resource exists within its maritime boundaries. He also asserted that “a silent multitude of Bahamians are in favor of knowing whether commercial oil reserves exist in The Bahamas,” noting that a successful discovery could boost government revenues by billions in royalties and create new contracts and employment. Previously BPC has indicated oil in commercial quantities could generate up to US$5bn in revenues over a 10 to 20-year period.
Paradoxically, the surge in interest in undersea Caribbean oil and gas comes at a time when the world appears to be moving towards binding commitments on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions principally caused by the hydrocarbons now being sought and found across the region. It is also happening when there is a growing consensus that non-renewable forms of energy have a limited future and as many oil majors are diversifying and channeling revenues into sustainable power sources.
It is also happening just as the political environment in relation to global warming is changing.
A few days ago, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, delivered speech in which he stressed the urgent need for climate action. Observing in unusually direct terms that “humanity is waging war on nature” he told governments that the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the 2016 Paris climate accord provided solutions but that “global solidarity” was required in “the pivotal period ahead.”
His remarks came soon after the U.S. President-elect Joe Biden had named John Kerry, a former secretary of state, to be his cabinet-level special presidential envoy on climate change, and made the issue one of U.S. national security. Mr. Biden has also committed to signing on his first day in office an executive order that will see the U.S. re-join the climate change accord; convene within 100 days a global summit; see the U.S. achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050; and commit US$2 trillion to greening U.S. transportation, power generation, construction and infrastructure.
This suggests that for the president-elect addressing climate change is to be an overarching theme during his presidential term; an issue that can repurpose multilateralism and interdependence and restore western trust in U.S. leadership.
During the Obama presidency, despite strategic differences, the U.S. and China were able to agree to work together on actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This may be possible again.
Investor interest in the Caribbean’s undersea oil is accelerating, environmental activism is growing, and the world appears to be moving towards a consensus on climate change. David Jessop suggests this may require a more nuanced future regional narrative.
Intensely national in character, environmental protest is on the rise across the Caribbean. From French Guiana to Suriname, Guyana, Barbados, Antigua, Belize, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Cayman, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, local groups and eco-friendly coalitions of interest are becoming increasingly vocal and litigious.
Their concern primarily relates to extractive industries, reflecting the rapid recent rise in external investment in the recovery and search for offshore oil and gas and exploitation of onshore mineral deposits. This year has also seen activists opposing ill-considered mega-resorts and beachfront proposals, the development of ecologically sensitive sites, and objecting to potentially reef-damaging investments in new cruise terminals.
Such concerns seem set to grow as governments, faced with the challenge of delivering post COVID economic recovery, find themselves caught between agreeing to projects that will generate new sources of revenue and employment, and making unpopular technical decisions relating to the environmental damage that new investments may cause.
In the Bahamas, one such decision is causing many citizens to become conflicted over what is best for an island chain that up to now has almost wholly been dependent on tourism.
There, the Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC), an Isle of Man headquartered company, intends beginning operations this month on its Perseverance#1 well on its deep-water Cooper license, about 90 miles South West of the island of Andros and not far from the country’s maritime border with Cuba.
The decision by government to allow this is being legally challenged by an umbrella environmental group ‘Our Islands, Our Future.’ It is seeking an injunction if the company does not halt its planned activities pending a judicial review of the environmental authorization that allowed it to prospect.
The group argues that the project should be legally halted on the basis that the environmental impact assessment for the project was flawed, and there was a lack of proper consultation. It has also expressed concern about the absence of dialogue with the Bahamian government and has called for transparency in relation to the drilling licenses, BPC’s insurance coverage, and its environmental sensitivity mapping.
In response, BPC has questioned why it has taken so long to bring the legal challenge when its intentions were known earlier this year, arguing that all the necessary precautions required are in place. It also emphasizes that once scientific tests on the exploratory well establish whether oil is present on not, it will be permanently sealed.
You better inform Sterling Energy to update their website Chesh. You didn't seem too bothered at CERP website saying Leo was resident in UK even though he had moved to Portugal.
It's not unexpected that the sp will likely retrace as we head towards Friday's trading update. Which way it goes in the short term will depend on how the update is received.