Member Info for Manyana

Have you been drinking?

Nobody said there would be an "end of year" statement by O'Reilly. He has gone so it would be illegal for him to write one.

Get your facts straight and stay off the juice or is it something you put up your nose?

Still hoping for a year-end trading statement.

We have had one every year,so it will be interesting to see if we get one now baby has gone.

http://www.providenceresources.com/sites/default/files/28-12-18%20-%202018%20TRADING%20UPDATE%20PDF.pdf

Finally, it must have been something seismic that shifted O'Reilly when you consider he could have become a non-exec like Plunkett and McCoss but he went the whole hog.

If the majors were not interested why did they sign deals with him on joint ventures which were far riskier than Providence.

When they first discovered oil in Barryroe they signed a deal with Shell for off-carry of the oil "Providence entered into a MOA with Shell Trading and Marketing to agree an oil off-take agreement for future Barryroe oil production. "

They signed deals with Dunquin North with ExxonMobil. Druid/Drombeg with Total and Cairn.Total with Diablo Ridge. And there were others. You have got to have some credibility to be able to sign with these biggies.

I think the reason he went for the APEC deal was because it was a zero cost. Any other deal would have involved Providence putting up their share of the costs which they do not have because of all the waste he did over the years. In anybody's book to waste that sort of money was crazy but then he wasted far less than his father did when Daddy went to €2billion worth to minus, i.e. bankruptcy. Like father, like son.

And there is still the question "is there something wrong with Barryroe" even though they keep telling us how wonderful it is. After all, in the APEC it states "if Barryroe comes up a dead duck, Providence will not have to pay APEC a penny". A very strange situation if it is all they say it is cracked up to be.

We are still in mushroom land; kept in the dark and covered in the proverbial.

Surely the ideal candidate to take over Providence is AIdan Heavey and Tom Hickey both successful ex-Tullow men to join the other two ex-Tullow diectors, Pat Plunkett and Angus McCoss and use some of Carlyle's $1billion to develop Barryroe.

The arrival of Heavey into that scenario would be just cause as to why O'Reilly had to leave. There is no way Heavey would come into a scenario where an O'Reilly had any say as he had enough problems with O'Reilly's father back in the startup days of Tullow.

So interesting coincidences; O'Reilly retires from Providence at about the same time McCoss resigned from Tullow.

What are the chances this is all an ex-Tullow take over of Providence? At least two of them are there already and the other two have been given the Carlyle money to invest so where better to invest than to make it a four-some and make Barryroe a success.

Would make a great Christmas or New Year present. Here's hoping.

The chances are, when there is an election, it will be another hung parliament. The hodgepodge of parties and seats make it impossible to form a majority government.

Total 160 seats. 80 seats for majority. Current Fine Gael 47, Fine Fail 45, Sinn Fein 22, Labour 7, Other Parties 16 and then 22 Independents.

There is not a snowball's chance in hell that there will be a majority party and it will just be another "bad deal" arrangement between Fine Fail and Fine Gael to reach a majority and you can be sure, since Fine Gael have enacted this, that it will not be changed. Irish politics is worse than England under Theresa May and the rivalry between Fine Gael and Fine Fail stems from Independence in 1921; the enmity goes back that far. i.e. they hate each other and have done since then.

Yes, it was 1981 and the actual volumes were not great so further exploration would have had to be done to discover exactly how much was there. And then there was the logistics for getting into the Irish gas system. Spanish Point is about as remote as the Sahara is in Africa and there was no LNG back then. Furthermore, "OPEC reached an agreement to unify crude price at $32 per barrel through 1982 and sets an ultimate price ceiling of $38 per barrel". Given the price of oil and gas then, it was decided it was too expensive to explore further in Spanish Point because of infrastructure so it has been in abeyance ever since but with the development of Corrib which cost $3billion close by it is now probably economic to develop it and link it into Corrib at minimal cost.

You asked why it was not drilled in 1981 but you might as well ask why was it not drilled in 2012/13 as planned. Here is good old Shell to Sea's take on it.

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/providence-says-oil-field-big-corrib

If it is that big, it is worth developing.

Fine Fail have always been far greedier than Fine Gael. Look at the disasters The Fine Fail Taoiseach(s) (prime ministers) who have been in for the big bucks over the years. Lemass, Haughey, Ahern,Reynolds, Cowan. The only other two, De Valera, the illegitimate American, who caused all the problems at the creation of the state and Lynch, the sportsman, who had some dignity. But all the others were up to their necks in roguery. Martin, the current incumbent is a total "wet". Martin had about as much success in the 2011 election as Corbyn did in the recent election in England.

You can be sure, if there is an election, there will be no change to the status quo regarding this definitive statement. Why would they? Do you see any government coming in and giving up 55% profit when it is clear gas is absolutely necessary. the beauty is they can always blame the opposition, if necessary, for imposing it.

And, by the way, if any of you are not Irish, I suggest you take a holiday in Ireland during the winter in a primitive thatch cottage out in the wilds of Connemara, close to Spanish Point would be a good place, and promise not to turn on any heat for a week. You would not last a day when 60ft waves start beating in and a cold Atlantic hurricane is blowing in. You would be very happy to burn coal, peat, oil or gas for a bit of heat. If you get rid of gas and oil who is going to convert the 750,000 homes to run on gas because most of them currently depend on the other fossil fuels.

So lets get real. When Ireland has another 1m people planked on it in the next twenty years they will be more than happy if Barryroe is pumping oil and gas and Spanish Point gas is linked into Corrib.

Government moves to clarify rules involved in oil and gas development off the Irish coast.

On 17th December a definitive document was produced by the Minister and DCCAE clarifying the rules relating to oil and gas licenses past and future. It is worth reading as it lays down the law and is very much in Barryroe's and Spanish Point's favour.

https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/natural-resources/publications/Documents/62/Policy%20Statement%20Petroleum%20Exploration%20and%20Production%20Activities.pdf

Within the terms and conditions stated here there is nothing stopping Providence from developing Barryroe. Perhaps this clarity was necessary for somebody to come in and develop it.

As for Spanish Point, other than Barryroe it is the only proven gas reserve. "The Spanish Point discovery (IRL35/8-2) was drilled by Phillips Petroleum in 1981, and flowed circa 1,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and 5 million standard feet of gas per day (MMscf/d) from Upper Jurassic sandstones."

You do not hear much about it because the operator is Sosina even though Providence has 58% of the ownership. Sosina is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn which is quite a successful oil company working mainly in the North Sea.

http://sosina.co.uk/?Licences:Ireland:Spanish_Point_and_Burren

So, given that gas is now a given in Ireland for at least the next thirty years surely it makes sense to develop the two main areas where it can be found in abundance. Spanish Point was due to be drilled in 1915 but the price of gas and oil was so bad it was put on the back burner.

Even if I was APEC and was still interested would I want to take on the development of Barryroe before this definitive statement was made? There is also another issue for APEC. Any gas or oil found in Irish licenses has to be sold to an Irish entity. That means, at present, APEC could not ship the oil or gas back to China. It has to be sold and used for Irish purposes. I wonder did APEC consider this when they went into this agreement?

The only issue now is the Brid Smith Judicial Review scheduled to be held on the 20th January. With this statement I wonder is it worth her while continuing with it?

McCoss had nothing to do with the collapse of the share price in Tullow and the share price collapse was totally overdone because the oil they found .

He was exploration director so he was not directly involved in the day to day financial running and the share price collapse was the usual "bad news" but obviously there will be no need for his expertise in the coming years as Tullow now needs to consolidate what it has with its 28 producing fields and concentrate on its producing wells to maximise profits and get its debt down which it will.

But, in the meantime, Barryroe and Providence need an exploration manager/director with the departure of John O'Sullivan so surely that is what McCoss can now concentrate on.

As for being pessimistic, I would prefer to say I am cautious. Like most the biggest shock I have had with Providence over the years was the departure of O'Reilly. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider he would leave. So I am as confused as the next regarding the shenanigans that have gone on over the last year or so and I cannot see a logical path through it but I still believe the APEC deal is still there but not an exclusive and I still cannot give a sensible explanation as to why O'Reilly departed when Providence has been his "baby" for twenty years.

I still cannot fathom why he went if it was not for a beneficial reason and I cannot see him retiring in a vacuum or from a position of bad grace and false promises. We have had that from him in spades over the years and leopards do not change their spots. There is only one reasonable explanation for his departure and that is, somebody or something bigger and better are on their way to take over from him.

Both he and Plunkett are still singing the "How great thou art, Barryroe". They keep boasting how wonderful Barryroe is with Plunkett saying "a world class development asset which is capable of providing significant shareholder value in the coming years." If it is a dead dog how can it provide significant value to shareholders in the coming years if it is not developed? More porkies??

And O'Reilly, as he departs saying, "I wish all stakeholders in Providence every success in the years ahead, particularly with the Barryroe Project". Why would he bother saying that as he goes out the door if he did not believe it? It does not make any sense in the current climate and given his departure, if it is not true, he might as well have kept this mouth shut. After all, if he was pushed would he want it to succeed?

SirNigelW,

That is exactly right.

This is the worst case of not telling the shareholders what is going on and technically we are entitled to know under the freedom of information, if nothing else. But they can drag that out for months if necessary.

However, the financial year for Providence ends on 31st December so January is a new year and very often, if there is a deal it would be better to announce it then rather than at the end of this one.

Furthermore, there has always been a trading statement usually in the last week of the year. It will be interesting to see if there is one this year. If there isn't you can accept that this really is a can of worms and they are frightened to tell us.

As for his salary; I know this has been a bone of contention but when you consider that Angus McCoss, our non-exec director, was earning $1.5m a year with Tullow you have also got to ask yourself why has he resigned from Tullow but not from here?

They have to reveal all sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, but as Laurel and Hardy used to say "Another fine mess you have gotten us into".

"As at close of business on August 2, 2019, no funds had been received in the Company’s account as the payment date is still pending due to final processing by HSBC."

This is from the RNS on 5th August. How do you claim HSBC had no input. RNS's are specific to shareholders and must be very clear as they can constitute insider trading so somebody in HSBC had to tell them it was in there for processing otherwise how did they know or were they telling porkies?

Furthermore, let us be totally clear. The money was not coming from APEC but from the financial backers. It was to go from them to Providence and then Providence was to pay $1m to APEC. So if Providence did not get the $10m then APEC did not get the $1m.

Clear as mud, in my book.

The interesting thing about the money was where it was coming from. It was not coming from APEC to Providence but from the backers to Providence and as part of the transfer $1m was to be paid by Providence to APEC.

So, were the backers using "hot" money and hence it got stopped. There should be a statement from HSBC to say what has happened to it but if there was Providence has not told us about it.

I don't think this could be any clearer. The issue is whether it is true or not.

"Providence Resources has been notified by HSBC bank that the $10m (€8.9m) due from Chinese backer APEC Energy Enterprises has been transferred. "

This clearly states that HSBC bank has been transferred and was reported in the irish Times.

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/providence-resources-backer-transfers-8-9m-loan-38291206.html

There was a similar statement in the Irish Times and in Providence's own RNS on August 5th, they stated "As at close of business onAugust2, 2019,no funds had been received in the Company’s accounts the payment date is still pending due to final processing by HSBC." Again referencing that the money was in HSBC but they had not processed it.

So where is it and why was it not processed? Was it perhaps "hot" money?? Anyway it did not arrive.

So Irish companies should not deal with Chinese companies because of Chinese chicanery?

How is it then that Irish beef has been allowed to be sold in China and how was " Imports into Ireland last year were €4.5bn on goods and an estimated €350m in services" with all that chicanery hanging about?

And I am sure he was advised by Davy when the contract with APEC was drawn up, note, "The Davy Group is Ireland's leading provider of wealth management, asset management, capital markets and financial advisory services." Not too mean a group, don't you think and I am sure well able for a bit of "chicanery".

Obviously, the contract was written and signed subject to Irish law and there are plenty of high quality solicitors capable of doing that.

And what was the chicanery? The real question is what happened to the $10m that HSBC said APEC had paid. "Providence Resources has been notified by HSBC bank that the $10m (€8.9m) due from Chinese backer APEC Energy Enterprises has been transferred. " What happened to that? We have never heard a reasonable answer. Are HSBC liable for the non-transfer if they say they got it but did not transfer it on?

And I still say we don't know why O'Reilly resigned and is still working on until 31st January. That means he has gone by mutual consent and I cannot see a major investor having that influence and even if they did surely O'Reilly would have just packed his bags and walked away immediately - "Stuff you" comes to mind. In the meantime, of course, O'Reilly is "helping" until the end of January to assist in an orderly handover. If you were "forced" out would you do that?

I also say the APEC deal is not dead if they do not want it to be. If they claim the $10m was transferred to HSBC then they have complied with the agreement that they would transfer it so what bit of Chinese chicanery is that?

We just don't know what is going on but if O'Reilly is staying on until the end of January surely we will know something by then. In the meantime I hope we will get our annual Christmas message for Pat at worst.

ps200306,

You are so good at criticising let's see you put your chopper om the line and instead of criticism let's see if there is anything other than sawdust between your ears with a decent explanation of why O'Reilly left so suddenly and why we are in this sorry mess and its possible resolution..

I can see you already running for cover like a scared rabbit - prove me wrong.

The same goes for Longwait who is tarred with the same brush.

I do not know if you saw my post yesterday regarding the Brid Smith judicial review which was to take place on the 17th December. It has now been put back to 20th January and is probably one of the reasons why we are still in no-man's land but in fact it is better because the judge who was going to hear it could easily have come down on the side of Smith but the new judge, Mr Justice Kelly, is a government appointee, is President of the High Court, and has stated that he does not believe the judiciary should be involved in this case and he has proposed a three-judge judicial review. This is a move for the better.

Here is the schedule I posted on PVR yesterday.

It would seem the judicial review of the "money message" issue was down for 17th December but seems to have been adjourned until 20th January. Here is the schedule of events and time table from the court registry.

SMITH & ORS -V- CEANN COMHAIRLE 2019/791 JR
Date List Position Result Note
06/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE SIMONS 0044 Order
06/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE SIMONS 0045 NOD
06/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE SIMONS 0042 Order & Adjournment
06/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE SIMONS 0043 NOD
07/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE MEENAN 0019 Adjourned FM
17/12/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE MEENAN 0031 XX
05/12/2019 JUDICIAL REVIEW / FOR MENTION 0001 NOD
14/11/2019 JUDICIAL REVIEW / FOR MENTION 0003 Order and Adjournment
14/11/2019 JUDICIAL REVIEW / FOR MENTION 0000 TRA
18/11/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE KELLY 0005 Order and Adjournment
02/12/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE KELLY 0002 Order and Adjournment
02/12/2019 ADV MR JUSTICE KELLY 0003 Adjourned - no details available
20/01/2020 ADV MR JUSTICE KELLY 0000 XX
20/01/2020 ADV MR JUSTICE KELLY 0000 XX fdfh

No CEO is going to come into Providence without a deal being made. Why would you as you would be in the same mess as O'Reilly where the secret of success is money to develop the resources. And since all costs are recoverable from the beginning and say $300m has already been spent you can reclaim all of that before any taxes or profits have to be paid.

The only solution for O'Reilly is that a deal has been struck and they are figuring out the legal aspects which can take weeks if not months but obviously included the fact that O'Reilly had to step aside.

As for O'Reilly making a bad deal with APEC you have to remember Davy are the company's brokers and they are high powered so would have made sure the deal was watertight. If they did not it would be totally out of character.

Remember also, if the new law is passed and no more licenses will be issued as the government has stated means that all current licenses will have a major value and Providence has the best portfolio of licenses in Ireland. So surely a takeover is the most beneficial route for us shareholders.

But a CEO with no money is a waste of time.

A privately owned company is one that is registered for private shares, i.e. not traded on any public exchange. As such, it can just be a shell as a hiding place for something bigger. Look at the Cayman Islands. How many of these are registered there for nefarious reasons.

I have had a number of private companies limited by shares but not public for various financial transactions and you can get one off the shelf for a few hundred pounds, put a name plate on a facilities office and play fast and loose, hidden behind the company. Not that I ever did that, of course!!!

If you would like to buy one in Hong Kong it will cost you relatively small money and you can be up and running in about two days.

https://www.sfm.com/honk-kong-company-formation

So, APEC as a private company registered in Hong Kong and trading out of Beijing is absolutely a red herring. The most important part is its relationship to CNOOC when it says "APEC is a privately owned Chinese company which has a strategic partnership with China Oilfield Services Co., Ltd (“COSL”)" where COSL is a subsidiary of CNOOC.

So "private company" is totally meaningless and can cover a multitude of sins.

You transfer to a liquidator when your liabilities exceed your assets. That is not the situation with Providence. It has no liabilities being debt free and its assets are valued in billions.

After all, the Indians valued the company at $1.5billion when they were said to be interested in taking over the whole caboodle in about 2013. Nothing has changed, the assets are still in place but if somebody wanted to come in now and buy the lot for say $300m which would be a large discount would we complain?

In my opinion one of the major issues for Providence has been the fact that O'Reilly, on numerous occasions, told us he was going to develop it but went off and spent the money on wildcats. The question was "Why?" I believe that put a cloud over Barryroe and frightened of potential partners.

If Barryroe is the great asset they claimed it to be, O'Reilly would now be secure in his job, Barryroe would be pumping oil and and we would all be hailing him a hero. Instead he seems to be in some sort of "limbo" and we are all throwing bricks at him; rightly so, I might add.

I still blame O'Sullivan and Schlumberger for this mess. They claimed Druid/Drombeg had billions of barrels of oil which all ended up as water and cost a fortune in the six-months appraisal and the drilling. Schlumberger's reputation took a total nosedive on that analysis and you will find they have removed all references to Ireland and Providence off their website.

But did they say who had an interest in them? I bet they did not.

And surely if they started the process of getting the shares back in October why has APEC not returned them?

As usual Providence is a bag of worms with far more questions than answers, for example, we still do not know why O'Reilly left and was it the plan for his leaving that he fired all the rest of the staff before he stepped down making a very nice clean shell for somebody to step into?

And given the statement that current Irsh licenses for oil and gas will be honoured making Barryroe the most valuable asset in the Irish oil and gas sector its share price has once more started to languish below the 3p level.

And given that O'Reilly is staying on until the end of January note "Providence said that Mr O'Reilly has agreed to work with the board until the end of January 2020 to ensure an orderly transfer of his responsibilities." Who is he going to transfer his responsibilities to if nobody is in place. Or does it mean somebody or something is already iin place and we will only know about it in January as I am sure it will take at least a month for him to transfer his responsibilities.

Perhaps O'Reilly will write the year end statement as his last hurrah.