Member Info for Looed

****nal221 – It could be mere coincidence, but more interesting than the content is the timing of the article. There is nothing new in the piece that we didn’t already know from other sources, though it is certainly good to hear it direct from the GOGC. The article is a public show of conditional support by the GOGC. Though the article does reference more than one “Frontera”, ultimately it does seem to side with our FRC.

Pt. 2 (final part)

Finally, the government of Georgia decided to extend the contract with "Frontera", according to them the reason behind was to preserve the investment environment and strategic partnership with the United States.

By the decision of the government, the contract with "Frontera" was not terminated and the opportunity was given to continue its activities in the part of the initial contract territory, where oil production was still going on since Soviet times.
It is about 1% of the exploration territory of the state, since about 99% of this territory has already been returned to the state by “Frontera”, according to the arbitration decision.

(some subtle differences from the google translation making it slightly easier to follow)

Pt.1

"Frontera" may return to Georgia's oil sector

State oil and gas agency may announce renewed tender on "Frontera" block.

As the chairman of the agency, Giorgi Tatishvili, reported to "Business Partner”, "Frontera" returned 99% of the license block according to the international arbitration order. It has 1% remaining where the Oil and Gas Corporation operates.

“The local company of “Frontera” is in liquidation mode. As the liquidation process is underway, and not to deteriorate the economic situation and not to spill the oil, this oil is managed by the state itself. However, at the same time, we are negotiating with the American management of “Frontera", which has a desire to continue working here, but with the condition of fulfilling the terms that were put forward by the arbitration, because the amount has to be paid. So there is an opportunity for” Frontera " to return. If this does not happen, the state will continue to work there,” – says Giorgi Tatishvili.

According to him, formally, the license holder is still "Frontera". The conversation is about the “Frontera” which was founded in the Cayman Islands.

“When the liquidator entered this company, they did not have any motivation to work in Georgia. Until this situation with the American management of “Frontera” is sorted out, and they will make a decision whether to return or not, we will work until then,” – says Giorgi Tatishvili.

We would like to remind you that “Frontera” violated the contract, dated June 25, 1997, on the production sharing and processing plant, which became the legal basis for termination of the contract. According to the decision made by the arbitral tribunal, return of the search area of "Frontera" (about 99 percent of the contract area) to the state and reimbursement of expenses incurred by the Georgian side in connection with the arbitration dispute (total payment obligations of about 6 million US dollars) was ordered.

According to the contract of 1997, "Frontera" was to carry out search works within 10 years in order to discover new commercial reserves of hydrocarbons and further exploit them. After the expiration of this period, the company requested the extension of the search period 2 times, which was satisfied by the Georgian side. Accordingly, the total search period has increased by 20 years. As a result of 20 years of unsuccessful search, in 2017 "Frontera" asked again for an additional extension of the search period for 5 years and refused to return the search area. This became the basis for the corporation and the agency to submit a request to The Hague Permanent Arbitration Court for initiating an arbitration dispute.

There are 2 upcoming deadlines in the Hope Cali case. Though the deadlines are for the same case, they apply to different parts of the process.

31/1/23 – Deadline for FRC response to Hope Motion for Summary Judgement.
24/2/23 – Completion of Expert Discovery

In the recent filing both sides stated that they expected a deal “within days” and wanted to avoid “further expenditure of their resources while they continue to work towards a mutually beneficial resolution”. If matters have resolved, or they need more time, we might see something to that effect filed ahead of the 31/1 deadline so negating the need for FRC’s response to the Hope motion.

It seems unlikely when taking the positive vibes of the previous filing into account, but If FRC file a response to the motion for SJ, it might mean talks aren’t going as well as expected. Both sides have a tendency to take things right down to the wire when submitting their filings.

To the point made by Avi8r - The GOGC clarified (In May 2020) that the "1%" referred to "the exploration territories located outside the existing Exploitation/Development Area. The allegations as if SAOG and GOGC were eager to take control of these exploration territories are thus nonsensical." making the "99%" the undeveloped / unworked lands.

Chris572 – many thanks for sharing.

A lot of positives and consistencies with company comments. But also some confusing comments that might just reflect the speaker talking very generally or variances in google translate. I will send to the translator and see if that version gives us a clearer understanding.

They are allowing FRC to get its act together which again mirrors what we know. I assume some of the debts outstanding are already being paid off by the State Agency working the “1%” in lieu of FRC.

One thing seems new - I think this is the first time we have seen the GOGC confirm the 99% has been returned, they lies and delaying of which ZM was able to manipulate to his own advantage / our detriment. That is a big obstacle now dealt with.

Thanks Erik / Puddy

Thanks toatie - let's see what Puddy reports back and we can review again, but I think there might still be a small amount in the pot to keep it going for a short while, especially if the Hope Cali case really does come to an end soon.

Thanks Puddy.

The judge has now granted the joint motion for continuance of deadline.

WHamBoy – As you can see in the filing, both parties talk of resolution “in the coming days” so we will hopefully see some decisions soon. I assume any deal made in this case will bring the other Hope cases to a swift conclusion.

The company line is that they will communicate once all legal actions conclude. Settlement in the Hope case might help to speed up / clarify matters in the other cases so yes they might say something. However other US cases remain open (a mix of actions involving SN / ZM and FRC) and we don’t know what legal actions are in play in Georgia.

Obviously, we will need to see confirmation of any settlement in black & white. It’s impossible to say what level of detail we might see regarding a deal with Hope and we might only get a “both sides have agreed terms and litigation has concluded” type filing.

After countless delays either by Hope or by both parties, things now seem to be progressing relatively quickly and with both parties aligned.

Hi Puddy / anyone connected to the Translation Fund - just checking if you got my emails and invoices and didn't hear from you in a while. I expect there will be more filings to buy so need the backlog cleared, Thanks.

13. January 18, 2023, the parties’ respective counsel of record participated in a productive meet-and-confer conference call in which they discussed outstanding expert discovery and the possibility of settlement.

14. During this conversation, the parties reengaged in meaningful settlement negotiations and, as a result, believe that a resolution of the claims giving rise to this litigation will be reached in the coming days.

Recognizing this, the parties have agreed to stipulate to a 28-day extension of the expert discovery deadline and a 7-day extension of the parties’ respective briefing deadlines for Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment so that the parties can avoid further expenditure of their resources while they continue to work towards a mutually beneficial resolution.

https://www.docketbird.com/court-documents/Frontera-Resources-Corporation-et-al-v-Hope-et-al/STIPULATION-WITH-PROPOSED-ORDER-for-Continuance-of-Deadline-to-Conduct-Expert-Discovery-and-Briefing-Deadlines-for-Motion-for-Summary-Judgment-filed-by-Frontera-Resources-Corporation/cand-3:2019-cv-01996-00113?user_id=guest

Keysersoze / Njames - this project is reportedly being managed by Block Energy. There are a lot of articles from 2022 that discuss Block's involvement. This is one of the more detailed pieces:-

"The head of the State Oil and Gas Agency of Georgia, Giorgi Tatishvili, announced on the air of the "Course of Business" program that the existence of a natural gas field with a volume of 16 billion cubic meters in the country was confirmed.

Natural gas was confirmed by a well conducted by the company "Schlumberger" near Tbilisi. Currently, the operator of the license is the company "Block Energy", whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. The main field of activity of the company is oil and gas exploration in Georgia. The company owns the right to extract resources from Blocks IX and XI (B).

According to Giorgi Tatishvili, head of the State Oil and Gas Agency, the license block requires horizontal drilling, and under the conditions of its utilization, the country will be able to fully meet the demand for eight years of natural gas.

"Block Energy" is one of our promising projects, in the well drilled in Schlumberger, in the surrounding area, 16 billion cubic meters of reserves have been confirmed. If you can imagine this, it is equal to the consumption of Georgia for 8 years.

Block Energy is returning to this project with a confirmed plan, expected to start late this year or early next year. Horizontal drilling should be done here to cover more rock and extract more commercial gas. At the same time, "Block Energy" is doing horizontal drilling in old wells, which has led to an increase in gas extraction by 80%. "Block Energy" has a withdrawal of 30 million cubic meters, which is equal to the consumption of, for example, Telavi or Sagarejo. After this well is mastered, these numbers will be much more important and impressive," said Giorgi Tatishvili."

https://bm.ge/ka/article/saqartveloshi-16-mlrd-metr-kubis-gazis-sabado-dadasturda---navtobisa-da-gazis-saagento/112775 (there is an 18 min video embedded in the article and I assume G. Tatishvili is the person being interviewed)

Consistent with the last couple of quarters, the Q4 report shows "less than US$5K" spent on lobbying.

https://disclosurespreview.house.gov/ld/ldxmlrelease/2022/Q4/301427956.xml

We know that the level of detail available to us from the Cayman Islands is meagre at best. Outside of disclosing the current status of the company we do not know how accurate or updated any ancillary information is.

The Cayman Registry entry for FRC-Cayman was last checked in Nov 2020 and an updated records check has now taken place. The company remains listed as “active” and FRC continues to be classified as an “exempt” company.

One oversight is that ZM remains listed as a director of FRC-C (the other directors are SN and LG). It’s your guess if this is a result of tardiness by the company in updating the Cayman public record or if it this reflects how long it takes for information to filter down to the public record.

Other than fighting Cayman-related court cases we don’t see any other activity in Cayman so I expect this admin issue isn’t something that will trouble the company too much, but they have been informed on this matter.

Other than this anomaly, the company is alive in both Texas and Cayman.

This website explains the corporate benefits of being classed as “exempt” in Cayman, though it doesn’t seem to do much for shareholder rights - https://www.harneys.com/media/j40bf0kn/c01_exempted_companies_in_the_cayman_islands.pdf

Some other events to look out for this month - the release of the Q4 ‘22 lobby report and FRC’s response to the Hope Motion for Summary Judgement in the Cali case.

Thanks ivyspivey for sharing the link.

Though the form is a basic procedural tool, it does show that the company have unraveled yet another of the mis-deeds of ZM. He allowed most of the US registered companies to forfeit the right to transact business in Texas by not paying the associated fees. This form and links to the other entities shows that issue is resolved and has the entities listed as “active”.

Thanks to Jim Slade / FSHG for the validation process.

It is my understanding that there might be more messaging. Not every recipient will be part of this community as not every shareholder participates here, so it might be hit and miss who gets contacted from here and when. As matters currently stand (and as the company again points out), the messages will not contain anything new. They might consider the sending of just a few messages to be good enough for now.

People don’t like to hear it, but the company still sees little point in contacting anyone when we know what is happening via the public domain from people who continue to sleuth. The company had made it very clear they will not comment on anything off the record, in part while the court cases play out. So we continue to be on our own when it comes to info gathering.

Despite many attempts to make it otherwise, it remains a paradox that such communications are not a priority for the company even though they fully accept and understand that for some shareholders, contact very much is a priority.

They will continue to use email for now. If you have previously emailed the company, then they have a record of your contact information.

I hope folks agree that it’s good practice that those who share any messages from the company, and if they are members of FSHG, also agree to submit their message to FSHG for validation just as Jim Slade did.

I can see that some are asking about production status and how things are being financed but that information is laid out in the original message that Jim kindly shared with us and which is supported by what we know from the record.

Nothing to report. I don’t think Xmas is a significant date to them. The only dates they seem to be focused on are related to the court cases. For example, we saw that FRGC was in court last week, so I doubt anyone will say a thing until that situation is resolved. We don't know how many other cases might be ongoing in Georgia.

More generally, the GG are getting more vocal in promoting Georgia as both an energy provider and as an energy transport hub. So we might be able to glean something if the GG / GOGC keep making statements on policy, new agreements etc.

Just to add that there could be other parties involved, perhaps chasing debt. You can see only 1 lawyer is named but presumably GOGC have representation as they are a named party. There could well be others chasing ZM / Green Capital if the case is not related to the seizure, as this case is being heard in city court and not appeal court.