Member Info for LOTM-13

Hmm plenty of biscuits in the pictures ........

LOTM

New Rules -

I'm putting these in place for a reason, to limit my/our exposure to SYNT.

We've already effectively spent/lost £31K for a mere 550 shares.

The objective of all of this is to lower our break even point while at the same time limiting our additional exposure to something bad happening at SYNT in the future.

If I just keep increasing the size of the trading parcel etc all I'm doing is tying up more capital in this one endeavour & not having the cash to diversify the portfolio in other directions enough.

So here's what I'm going to be doing from now ( I'm sorry that its more complex than before but hopefully everyone will still understand it as we go along)

The existing 550 shares which are not in my name & so can't be traded by me anyway are going to form part of what I'm going to term the Blue Core Holding.

Most of the trading profits I make will be used to buy additional shares for the Blue Core & in my share account.

There will also be a Yellow Core, which will consist of 4,000 shares, this can be traded selectively at times, but only when they command an acceptable profit margin, ie in excess of 5p per share after costs (they can be part sold as well). There will also be an Orange Core, but this will be very small (under £1K) & is for re-allocating shares to the Blue Core when a profit is banked in bundles of 125 shares.

There will also be a Red trading parcel of 6,000 shares to trade as & when appropriate.

This will limit our new exposure to SYNT to around £19K max ( plus the trading profits that have been re-invested into it) meaning we could end up losing £50K Max of our own cash plus the re-invested profits.

The existing profit is £1505 in cash terms & we've gained 1,310 shares to date on top of the 3,850 shares we would have had if the rights issue had been fully taken up by us (5,160 shares).

I've now allocated 825 shares to the Blue Core ( cost £1450) to go with the 550 shares giving a starting point of 1375 shares in total. Those shares currently have a break-even point of £22.472

The Yellow Core has 4,000 shares in it & the Orange Core has 175 shares, there are currently none in the Red Trading bit.

By shrinking the Core from 5,000 shares to 4,000 shares it makes it a little less tempting to want to sell it & bank the profit.

I'll thank Raydio & joseywales for making me come up with this idea through there desire/worry about me possibly being totally out of the stock & the price jumping higher & the issue of trying to get back in again or missing the boat completely.

This new strategy really stops that from happening ( unless there is something really worrying that makes me want to sell the Blue section as well). At the same time it still gives me a lot of flexibility to trade the shares. It limits my/our exposure to SYNT. Capping it at either under £40K when there is no trading parcel & under £50K when I do have a trading parcel.

It definitely feels (for now at

Unfortunately there are now 2 threads with the same name.

As this is the one with all my previous trades on it, I'm copying over part of my last post on the other one so that people can easily follow what's happening in that regard.

My Core holding limit order of 5,000 shares got filled at £1.74719 which works out at £1.757124 after all costs.

Unfortunately for me the limit order for my Trading parcel wasn't reached so I didn't get the other 6,000 shares I was after ! If I'd been around I might have taken the £1.75 on offer, instead of the low £1.72's it was set at, hard to say without seeing things unfold on screen.

So my £8105 would have bought me 4613 Shares. I've rounded the number down to 4610 to make it easier for people to follow.

So I've now got a Core holding of 5160 shares when you add in the Original 550 shares plus another 390 shares to part allocate to it when I next make a profit.

To date I've now gained 1,310 shares (which is a gain of 34.02%) & lowered our break-even price per share which was £60 without taking up any of the rights issue, to £9.74 with the full rights issue taken up, to now £7.267 which is a drop of 25.39% on the £9.74 figure.

Some might say its fairly impressive, but to be honest if I was any good at trading I probably should have reached or been very close to that original 7,700 share target already. A lot of improvement to be done, hopefully this resetting of the Core holding share price will allow me to do that.

I've had another long think about the situation & will post my new thoughts & rules here before Monday trading starts.

GLA

LOTM

Hi saxman303

hmm I'm not sure your price range & mine tie-up.

I had the trading range as like £1.78 - £1.94 when I did my first trade.

I would say its dropped since then to £1.68 - £1.87 as the very outer limits currently (mainly within £1.695 - £1.865) & £1.74 - £1.82 frequently.

There needs to be a catalyst to make it move out of this range, a trading update or a market correction are the 2 most likely events that could trigger that. I'm not sure either of them is going to happen anytime soon.

Make hay while you can.

Good luck

LOTM

Hi Raydio & joseywales

Sorry I wasn't around most of the day to reply to you both.

You'll be pleased to know my Core holding limit order of 5,000 shares got filled at £1.74719 which works out at £1.757124 after all costs.

Unfortunately for me the limit order for my Trading parcel wasn't reached so I didn't get the other 6,000 shares I was after ! If I'd been around I might have taken the £1.75 on offer, instead of the low £1.72's it was set at, hard to say without seeing things unfold on screen.

So my £8105 would have bought me 4613 Shares. I've rounded the number down to 4610 to make it easier for people to follow.

So I've now got a Core holding of 5160 shares when you add in the Original 550 shares plus another 390 shares to part allocate to it when I next make a profit.

To date I've now gained 1,310 shares (which is a gain of 34.02%) & lowered our break-even price per share which was £60 without taking up any of the rights issue, to £9.74 with the full rights issue taken up, to now £7.267 which is a drop of 25.39% on the £9.74 figure.

Some might say its fairly impressive, but to be honest if I was any good at trading I probably should have reached or been very close to that original 7,700 share target already. A lot of improvement to be done, hopefully this resetting of the Core holding share price will allow me to do that.

GLA

LOTM

Hi IP3LY,

As I said, I've already bought 2 lots of shares for the dividend.

I can see this being pushed even higher ahead of next Thursday even with Schroders selling out as fast as they can.

Just think next Tuesday is going to be really interesting to see what happens (or doesn't)

GLA

LOTM

Core holding sold for £1.83468 & a profit of £129

So I now have £8105 to spend on the core holding at £1.75 or below.

GLA

LOTM

It's a pity I was out yesterday afternoon otherwise I would have got a much better price for the that trading parcel rather than the £168 I made

I was documenting all my trades late last night & discovered an error the profit the other day wasn't £233 it was in actual fact just under £281.

Having reviewed things, I have decided to sell the Core holding this morning & will then take the risk that the share price will at some point soon reach £1.75 or lower to re-purchase the stock.

The reason behind this is that having that trading parcel at a cost of around £1.80 when the recent trading range is in actual fact £1.69 - £1.85 has been causing me not to act when I should. It has also been costly, to the tune of perhaps 300+ shares because I've been allocating new shares at that price. The Core holding initially contained a lot more shares than the 3300 needed (to go with the original 550 shares that are held elsewhere). The 5,000 share parcel started out with an excess of 1,335 than the 3,365 needed after investing what would have been the rights issue money. This has been a drag on the performance, admittedly decreasing with reach passing cycle to the current point where the excess is now down to 570 shares.

I do want to keep an excess so that they are immediately allocated on each banked profit, but it should constantly remain in the sort of 300 - 400 share range.

So once I sell the Core holding I will have the £6,600 from the right issue plus the total banked profit to date of £1376 (plus any profit on the core ones) to buy shares at £1.75 or under. The £7,976 should get me at least 4,525 shares to go with the existing 550.

I will also buy a trading parcel of between 5,500 - 6,000 shares as well.

If I happen to buy the trading parcel at a lower price than the Core holding, I will be swapping them over. Thus the core holding will be the ones at the lower price (the actual number of shares in the Core will be the original cash value divided by the lower purchase price + costs). Thus the trading profit on the next cycle will be lower, but it will get allocated more shares because of the lower purchase cost.

Hopefully that makes sense if not you should get to understand it as we go.

As of right now I've so far managed to increase the total shareholding by 29.35% compared to what it would have been had I just taken up the rights issue & done nothing but hold it. That in turn has reduced our breakeven price by 22.69%

Still going for my initial target of 7,700 share (double what it would have been) & a break even price of £4.87 (half of what it would have been).

GLA

LOTM

Just sold the trading parcel again for £1.7551 as I'll be out the rest of the afternoon.

Put a limit order in to buy them back again at a lower price, in case that happens when I'm out.

GLA

LOTM

Been watching this quietly in the background.

Was hoping to be buying this around the £6 mark close to the Ex-dividend date, but that clearly isn't going to happen.

So I've bought a couple of parcels of it over the past few days ahead of it going ex-dividend on 14th December for the hefty amount of £0.559.

Of particular interest to me was the shortness of the last "PUSU" extension granted on 5th December, these have often been for a month or at least a couple of weeks. This one was for just 1 week (like the last one in actual fact as well) but I can't help thinking its been done deliberately ahead of the Ex-D date.

So they can announce the offer & have the dividend included in the amount that shareholders are to receive ! (seen this happen quite often on other shares previously)

Will only find out if I'm right or not next Tuesday the 12th December.

GLA

LOTM

Just bought back my trading parcel of 5750 shares at £1.7154

I didn't want to be greedy, I missed the chance to buy at around £1.73 the other day due to a powercut & then could have sold it for £1.80

As I said you have to have stock to be able to sell it.

Lets see if it goes sub £1.70 again or bounces from here.

GLA

LOTM

Hi RagstoRich,

I have to totally disagree with you regarding the boards, I really don't think you've grasped just how abominable the last board were, incompetent across the board , except for spending & wasting shareholders money which they excelled at. Thought they were BP or Shell with there largeness.

If they hadn't cut G&A by $50M a year, where do you think the company would be right now ?

I'm totally out at the moment with a banked loss of £3K. If I'd still been in it would have been £10K at £1.50 & @£16K at £1.40

I see one insto is shorting the stock following the operations update.

I still see significant potential but there a lot of questions that need answers ....................... & none of them are going to be forth coming until 2024.

LOTM

Hi Morbox,

I did the same (bought more this morning at a not very good price compared to 69)

So I've sold them this afternoon for a tiny profit, as there are games a foot .......

2 of the last 3 days trading have ended with a big up & a big crash, so don't want to get caught out.

I've put a limit order in, in case it goes to 69p again.

Good luck with what you choose to do with your's

LOTM

I couldn't resist selling the core holding this morning & a little of the trading parcel that was left at £1.855494 as that seems to be the top of the current trading range.

I wasn't wanting to take a big risk with it so I've happily bought it all back (5000) at £1.79745 for a net profit of £233.

So that gives me another 125 shares onto the Core holding taking it up from 4750 to 4875 & lowering our break even price from £7.895 to £7.6925

Waiting to buy back the Trading parcel at hopefully a much lower price.

GLA

LOTM

Yet another 52 week low hit today.

Under performance compared to GKP is unbelievable right now

GLA

LOTM

Hi RagstoRich,

You did say so, but my own projections in October showed everyone how tight it was going to be cashwise.

I'm not sure where that $26M that I was expecting has gone to.

There are clearly other issues that have arisen in the past few weeks ......... with there partner (Cheiron) that we're not fully aware of, that's having a big impact ( looks like they can't deffer D&P as an example)

LOTM

Friday's sale of my 5,500 trading parcel netted a profit of £263.

So our core holding has risen by another 150 shares now to 4,750.

Which in turn has lowered our breakeven point from £8.152 to £7.895 still terrible, but making progress slowly but surely.

Lets see what this week brings

GLA

LOTM

Sorry this was a very long post & I've had to split it into 4 parts to get it posted here.

This is my updated view following Friday's Operations update announcement.

Part 1 -

I made my year end prediction's on this thread on 28th October.

Sadly since then Capricorn have released several negative pieces of news, including yesterday's operations update.

They are meant to be open & transparent with there communications now, but sadly they are not as detailed as they should be in spelling things out for investors.

It has taken me several of there announcement to get a better understanding of what's being said between lines, or has been left out for a reason!

Sadly this is not going to be pleasant reading for many ........

The production miss is much great than you might initially think, originally production for the year was forecast to be 32,000 boepd with an exit rate of 34,000 boepd & increasing into early 2024.

Instead production is now forecast to fall from just 30,600 boepd at the end of October to @ 30,000 boepd for the year as a whole. That means production for November & December combined is going to AVERAGE just 27,010 boepd. Yes that's right 27,000 boepd ((30,000*365 - (30600*304)) / 61).

So this Miss isn't just the 2,000 boepd it appears to be on the surface ie 30,000 instead of 32,000. No the miss come the end of December is in actual fact 7,000 boepd. In other words Capricorn will enter 2024 with production over 20% below where it should have been.

Part 2 -

The announcement talks about more project delays & lower than expected new well contributions which is not a good sign.

It then goes on to add this very interesting bit "Capricorn is working closely with the Operator to assist it to focus on high-grading new well opportunities, deploying the appropriate scale of rig fleet to ensure effective exploitation of the asset base, and delivering the most efficient drilling campaign and optimised reservoir management.

They've talked about "high-grading" before but the new bit should be causing alarm on a number of fronts.

Its basically saying the operator is using the wrong rigs !

Now this could be one of 2 things, the operator is using cheaper lower powered rigs in the hope of saving money, which usually ends up doing the exact opposite, with breakdowns, controlling the wells while drilling higher pressure sections, damaging the productive formations etc. Or it could be them using far more powerful rigs than are actually needed & thus these are likely to be far more expensive to hire & them hiring more rigs than they need!

It all points to disagreements/friction with their partner Cheiron & EGPC !

Which is alarming considering Capricorn has just passed operatorship of all the licences it operated over to Cheiron !

The fact the D&P budget is unchanged from previous guidance, re-enforces my alarm at what's happened, it doesn't make sense at all. If you've had to push back all these well's then a large chunk of the D&P money should have been pushed back into 2024 as well until the work takes place.

So something is definitely not right there.

I'd go so far as to say CEO Mr Neely will be taking the same approach to Egypt as he has to the UK, I doubt the head of Egypt is still in a job along with several others in senior positions, if she is I'd say its highly unlikely that she's there much longer. Those at the top there clearly have no idea of what there doing recruitment wise. Which leaves you wondering how Capricorn functioned at all previously! when they were meant to be an operator & the staff capable of doing so.

----------------

As to the financial numbers. Well the first key observation is this, why didn't they wait until Monday/Tuesday to put out this update ?

Because if they did they could have incorporate the end of November numbers instead, but there's a good reason they didn't want to do that !

There well below the $70M I was expecting for cash receipts in the 2nd half of 2023, now in part a little of that will go down to the lower production numbers but still $44M seems on the low side.

Part 3 -

Receivables & Overdue payments both increased by @ $26M up to the end of October ( I had allowed for $50M for each to end of December). So no real progress so far in quickening up payments to us & they conveniently didn't give an updated payables number, so NO way of knowing the true net position!

Debt was reduced by $13M which will help to lower Capricorn's interest payments.

Now to the net cash balance of $45M down from $174.6M at the end of June (need to deduct @ $97M for the special dividend & @ $4.5M for the share buy-back (£13.255M-£9.7M to 31st Oct).

So that leaves $73.1M less the $45M cash balance which means $28.1M of existing cash was used up in the 4 months, plus the $44M of new cash receipts, ie total spend of $72.1M over 4 months.

I had 2nd half expenditure previously pencilled in for $120.1 - $130.1M, that figure will be wrong now because of lower opex costs etc.

There still saying $40-50M D&P, lets stick to $30M for G&A, Egypt loan interest $5M, lets cut Opex to $23M & $8.4M for the rest of the share buy-back (but I'm going to exclude $6M of that for now), gives us a new total of $102.4 -$112.4M.

So if we deduct total estimated spend for the 2nd half of this year ($102.4 -$112.4M) from that already spent $72.1M it leaves Capricorn with @ $30-40M to pay against a current cash balance of $45M.

Therefore they have enough cash to last them through the end of December.

Then it becomes very tricky indeed & they are at the mercy of EGPC & the payment that is due in January & whether it arrives on time or not because if it doesn't then how are they going to pay the $25M that is due to Shell ?

Even if it does arrive on time its going to be a lot smaller than I had previous forecast due to the considerable drop in production that's occurred.

Let's say the payment is enough to cover that $25M, they still need to have enough cash to get hem through to there next payment.

Now Waldorf are going to be due them a payment of @ $50M currently, but given the current situation at Waldorf I doubt they'll be paying that until the very last minute possible (if not beyond) so in my opinion that cash won't be going into the bank account until at least 31st March 2024.

Given the G&A spend of $6M for the 1st Qtr of 2024 not to mention Opex costs for the same period they will now simply run out of money.

I talked about borrowing some in my forecast, that is still possible, but the cost of doing so will be much higher, given the falling production profile (instead of a rising one) the Senegal legal position that arisen etc.