Member Info for Manyana

For people who trade in shares your knowledge of company law is abysmal.

If O'Reilly dared to pick up the phone and tell a journalist yes or no regarding the money he would be guilty of insider trading and could end up in jail.

If the journalist knew that information before he published it he could buy providence shares and make a killing.

The only legal way O'Reilly can publish that information is by an RNS at 7.00am on Monday an hour before trading starts at 8.00am.

It was in the Irish edition and it is totally confusing when you compare the headline to the content.

It was in the Business digest which is a set of snippets and was under the heading "No yuan home for Providence" which would give the impression that the money had not come through.

The actual text then is not conclusive as to whether the money came through or not. The full text of the snippet says:

"Providence Resources boss Tony O’Reilly Jr is under pressure to clarify the status of €8m from Chinese partner Apec. The funds, for developing the Barryroe field, were due no later than Friday last week."

And that's all the snippet says about Providence and the money folks.

At least O'Reilly is under pressure to come clean if APEC have defaulted.

The two things are totally disconnected.

The only objection to the approval is whether or not it complies with the EU directives. If they have no legal reason to prove it does not then they must approve it or Providence could sue them. And the only legal reason they could question it could be challenged by Providence in a judicial review. After all, Providence know why it failed the first time so if they have put that to rights there can be no reason why approval would not be given.

As for the bill, what will the government do if IOLAR gushes oil? After all, they had a good idea about the climate bill before they granted CNOOC permission to drill IOLAR so why would they prevent Providence from drilling Barryroe unless they were scared of upsetting the Chinese but then the Barryoe partners are themselves Chinese and I contend they too are part of CNOOC.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day even though we might not hear anything before Monday with an RNS. Get up early as the are normally issued in the morning at 7.00am.

You obviously know very little about Irish pensions.

In 1999 Ireland introduced ARF/AMRF pensions. What do you know about them and how many changes have the government made to them as they recouped more and more of the capital through ever more penal taxes?

And you say the government didn't do anything about pensions.

Obviously I made a mistake and you are a big landowner raking in your CAP payments. If that was not money for old rope tell me what is. No wonder you are on the side of the land grabbers who build up their land holdings so the can get more money from the EU that decent tax payers
like myself end up paying for.

It is a pity Ireland does an Irexit which would shaft freeloaders like you. I'd like to give you another blast of Ann but I would be afraid it might blow a blood vessel and bring you to your senses.

I am quite aware of using GDP as a false metric but just because a country is prosperous does not mean it should pay more. Contributions to the EU budget are based on populations and not on GDP. Why not base it on national per capita debt so those with the greatest debt pay the least. That way Ireland would never have to contribute for probably the next hundred years as its per capita debt is second only to Japan.

If you had spent the last nine years paying the penal USC tax introduced by the Irish government to pay off its debts you would be rather upset too and as I presume you don't live in Ireland you are probably unaware of it and I am not going to explain it - look it up.

You are probably some small-minded stuffed overpaid shirt who has been living off the back of the EU for years and now, hopefully you are going to get shafted.

So sorry Remainer you are going to lose badly and the UK will be better for it. As for my rants, what are you talking about? All I can hear from you is coming out of your rear end and it does not smell too good. At lest Ann Widdecombe told it as it is which is more than I can say for you.

Sounds like we have a CAP free loader here.

I note you have forgotten to mention set-aside, intervention and things like milk quotas - all of which decimated Irish farmers . Why? Because they were invented by the EU to create artificial high prices for French, Dutch and German farmers.

Why bother to pick the time after the war; why not during it in Ireland as told to me by my parents. Ireland didn't have a "War" it had an "Emergency" because it was neutral. Ireland was starving during the war never mind after it because of its neutrality and it could not get goods imported. The majority of Irish people survived the war on milk, porridge, potatoes and cabbage, all of which they produced themselves.

I remember after the war when I actually lived in England with my family where we had to go because Ireland was destitute and there was no work and where my father, a very talented builder and mechanic, spent his time working on building UK roads to keep us alive because that was the only job he could get.

And who created all that mess in the first place? Germany supported by France, who else. Germany started the war, invaded and took over France and then the Petain government colluded with the Germans. Petain, collaborator with Hitler and Germany was tried as a traitor, sentenced to death which was commuted to life in prison because of his age.

And then the two sides, Germany and France together with Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands got together 11 years later on in 1957 and founded the EEC which is now the EU. I have never understood how they could all become such good friends so quickly until you realise Germany overran all those countries during the war except Italy where they had a soft spot for that tyrant Mussolini .

And where did you get your nonsense that "The CAP represents about one third of one percent of EU GDP."? But what percentage does it represent of the EU budget which is real money? A perfect example of "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

The current status says that CAP expenditure as a share of the EU budget has decreased very sharply over the past 25 years, from 73% in 1985 to 41% in 2016. "

That fact alone makes the rest of your diatribe totally irrelevant because it is based on your idea that the CAP budget is an minuscule part of EU GDP and is therefore irrelevant when, in fact, it is a huge part of the EU budget and affects real farmers with real cash to live on as they get ripped off by the rest of the thieves in the EU.

So please show me your information which says "The CAP represents about one third of one percent of EU GDP" and stop trying to use an abstruse dubious statistic to cover up the blatant abuse of waste and greed by the nameless, faceless turnips who are stuffing their pockets and faces at our expense in the gold lined streets of Brussels and Strasbourg as they cream off CAP payments from countries such as Ireland and the UK.

Next time you try to be sarcastic you could show it by putting your statement of fact in quotes.

I too come from a farming background many years ago and loved my time but if anybody thinks proper farming is now a useful occupation they should think again.

I have friends who have 300 acres of the best land in the country and they cannot make a living out of it. Their children all work in industries and see no value in farming other than the gravy train of the EU grants as you get long hours, early mornings and end up with peanuts from working the land.

Their biggest revenue item for the year is growing about 50 acres of barley which they sell in a private deal to a local horse trainer to feed his horses. They say if you sold it to the coops you would get peanuts for it and the trainer says if he bought it from the coops it would cost you a fortune - so who makes all the money?

As for traders, they are nothing but thieves and as for a hard border and customs controls in Ireland someone is having a laugh.

You won't remember this case as you live in the UK but many years ago a trader was jailed for importing garlic from China but labelled it as apples. Why? Well apples are imported duty free but garlic has tariffs? Why? Because the EU wants to protect those lovely French farmers who grow garlic.

Here is the case. "Mr Begley, head of fruit and vegetable importers Begley Brothers Ltd, Blanchardstown, Dublin, was jailed in March 2011 after he admitted avoiding customs duty on more than 1,000 tonnes of garlic from China by having them labelled as apples."

As you say, CAP is no more than a protection for French farmers. Where does the UK CAP payment come from? Maggie's EU rebate of course. The UK pays the EU about €13 billion a year but gets back about €4billion in things like CAP which is then given to the richest who least need it.

Fortunate for you to be getting out of the EU. But you won't get out unless Boris becomes Prime Minister; not so sure if you get Hunt. Believe me, Boris plays the fool but he is a Trump in more ways than one. He uses, like Trump, inverted logic, "as long as they think I am a fool, I can pull the wool over your eyes, and have you for breakfast".

That's a bit like your sarcasm which comes across as gospel when, in fact, the only person who knows it is sarcasm is you.

God bless your innocence. You have put the inefficiency of the EU into perspective except you regard it as a benefit not a curse. You are talking about CAP, Common Agricultural Policy, the biggest trough of pig swill known to man and your story has put it in a nutshell.

The EU dishes out about €60billion each year to landowners, note to landowners not farmers, who do not need to do anything with the land to get paid; just sit back smoke their cigars, drink their port and let the euros roll in.

The biggest beneficiaries of CAP are landowners not farmers. If you own land the EU pays you buckets of money even if you do absolutely nothing with it. Farmers, on the other hand, who try and do something with land get peanuts from CAP for their labours, go bust, either commit suicide or sell it to your potato merchant who does nothing with it other than to collect his CAP grants because he owns the land.

The biggest beneficiaries of CAP are billionaires such as James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame who used his vacuum money to buy land and claim CAP, £1.6m last year. Or the Queen and her baby Charles who also have their noses well and truly buried in that through and you will never see them mucking out the cowshed.

Here is a quote:

"One in five of the biggest recipients of European farming subsidies in Britain are billionaires and millionaires on the Sunday Times Rich List, research suggests. Rankings by Greenpeace of the 100 companies and landowners receiving the biggest basic payments under the Common Agricultural Policy shows 20 of them are wealthy enough to feature on the Rich List".

And Ireland is just as bad. You can read about all the pigs there at https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/who-were-the-top-beneficiaries-of-cap-payments-in-ireland-last-year/

No wonder your potato merchant thinks its the greatest thing since fried bread as he rides the pig's back but how many farmers did he put out of business to get there?

So, you have hit he nail on the head as to why the EU is a disaster except you have been fooled by a snout in the trough into thinking it is the greatest gravy train whereas, as the Vicar of Dibley joke goes "It is probably the worst idea since Hitler's father said to Mrs Hither, let's go upstairs Bruin Hilda, I am feeling a little saucy tonight".

Watch it to learn a few more truths at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ooqDLqseQ

What are you people talking about?

First of all Maams, how many oil wells have been drilled in the North Sea by countries in the EU?
The UK has drilled 5,000, Holland 2330 and Denmark 375. Norway I have excluded even though it has drilled 2330 since it is not a full member of the EU.

How many of those wells went through the tortuous process Providence has had with Barryroe's approval and if not why not? Because Brussels do not give a fig for Ireland and the poorer Ireland the better they like it. The notion "whipping boy" comes to mind.

The EU is a group of countries centred around Germany/France and a few others and for them the rest can go hang and are there to make up the numbers. The concept of hind tit comes to mind. For too long Ireland doffed its cap to the English "gentry" even when the same "gentry" were responsible for more than a million deaths in the potato famine. Now Ireland is doing the same to the mannequins in Brussels - "Yes sir, no sir, begorrah isn't it a nice day?"

For example, how can the EU elect a German , Ursula Von Der Leyen as European Commission president, an out and champion of a European state who wants a European army when Germany was prevented from having an army for decades after the atrocities it committed in WWII. The whole place has gone nuts.

As for Maams and his comments re Russia. Perhaps he should ask himself how Russia dug itself out of its financial disaster of communism if not through oil and gas. Now the EU wants Russia to be its main supplier of oil and gas with the development of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Did you see anywhere that the EU asked Russia for a detailed Environment Assessment for it through the Europen countries it passes through?? You bet they didn't. All they want is the gas and the oil.

As for the "love in" between Ireland and the EU. The EU loves Ireland like a naughty boy loves the pig whose tail he twists just to hear it squeal. Apart from that sadistic "like" the EU does not give a swanny about Ireland. For example, what decent job did any Irish person get in the current election of senior EU officials? And you think Ireland is important to the EU?

Give me Irexit any day and then we can unite with |England again and create a proper Common Market. A united Ireland first, of course.

So Maams, hopefully this will give you indigestion as you eat your Irish breakast but I know the truth is hard to bear.

We ended up here because poor old Ireland is in so much hock to the EU that it cannot do an IRexit until it pays off its debts so it must spend its time kissing the rear ends of European noddies who do nothing more than implement totally vacuous rules.

The whole issue of the approval is down to the fact that Ireland has to swallow what Brussels says hook, line and sinker. The whole issue with the abortive approval was caused by DCCAE not implementing fully the EU directives concerning habitat because in 2017 Brussels added a whole plethora of extra ones to the environmental directives.

And don't think, because CNOOC got their approval that Providence will get theirs for Barryroe. Different rules apply to each.

Of course it is nothing like this in Russia or the Middle East. If they had Barryroe it would be pumping oil and gas long ago. Those two places do not look gift horses in the mouth but fat pig bureaucrats in Brussels have to protect their big fat salaries and perks and the only way they know how is with rolls and rolls of red tape as it is jobs for the boys there.

What I, for one, would not give for an Irexit. Even give our horrible history of the past with England that is now surely behind us and a united Ireland, free of Brussels, would be far better for our future than the mess we are in shackled to Brussels. Ireland fought long and hard to become its own masters only to give it away to worse in Brussels.

And Ireland is regarded with derision by Brussels as being the country which will have as many referendums as necessary to get the right result as happened with the Lisbon treaty.

We should hang our heads in shame.

People's limited knowledge of company law on here is abysmal.

Companies have to reveal information that cam affect the share price for good or bad.

There are two issues; the approval and the payment of the loan. Since neither has been finalised one way or the other, the company is not legally bound to tell you anything.

However, if the money is not paid by Friday, Providence will tell us and if it is paid they will tell And if the decision on the survey is given or not they will also tell us - both all in good time. Patience is a virtue.

As for the share price, without the APEC deal Providence traded up to 17.5p. So why has the uncertainty of the deal changed anything? To me, irrespective of the way either approval or APEC goes the share price is surely a snip at its current level.

If they had escrowed the funds months ago would Providence have started the interest payments then at LIBOR +5% which is the current interest rate on the $19.5m when it is drawn.
An escrow becomes eligible for interest once it is set up as it is effectively payment except held by a third party pending satisfactory completion.

LIBOR is currently 2.5%pa so the APEC loan would have an effective interest rate of 7.5% on $19.5m for say a year as the deal was signed last September. That would have cost about a further $1.45m in wasted money that Providence would have to pay to APEC.

I don't think your escrow would be a good idea, do you?

O'Reilly does work for Providence except he does not get paid by them.

You have to realise O'Reilly is a resident of Malta where his wife and children live. I presume he does not spend more than 180 days a year in Ireland so he is classed as a non-resident for tax purposes.

Good way to work from home if you ask me. Hurray for modern technology.

Please stop bleating out of frustration about O'Reilly and O'Sullivan. You can do nothing about getting rid of them from Providence. They are totally protected by company law.

And as for voiding the deal - Providence cannot void the deal because it is a contract and if you void you will be sued by APEC for millions. On the other hand, APEC can default by failing to honour a condition of the contract, such as the payment of namely the $24m in which case they are in breach of contract and either Providence sues them or, more likely, walks away.

The error being made is the attempt to remove O'Reilly and O'Sullivan as directors. It is far harder to remove directors than you think because you would have to either have a majority vote of directors in favour of removal which in the case of O'Reilly and Sullivan would be like a turkey voting for Christmas or you would need the support of a majority of shareholders which means, in Providence's case the support of shareholders holding more than 300m shares.

Both are totally unrealistic so please stop calling for the impossible. Or if I am wrong tell me how you would go about it?.

I am afraid you are like the prophets of old "A voice crying in the wilderness".

The Chinese are past masters of cloak and dagger especially when it comes to oil and gas. Look at the issues it is creating in the South China sea where it is trying to steal the international drilling rights of numerous countries so that it has exclusive rights to drill for oil and gas.

Just look at how the took over Nexen in Canada which is now drilling the Iolar well off the West Coast under its new name of CNOOC International. Nexen is no longer Canadian but pure unadulterated Beijing Chinese.

I would lay a bet they will be in to get their hands on Barryroe if and when it gets off the ground. After all, the Indians were said to have bid for Providence back in 12/13 so why not the Chinese do a Nexen?

As for big mouth Brid Smith who would happily hand Irish resources to the Chinese I would like, in the context of the following article, to ask her how she would suggest dealing with the national debt when she is so quick to discard Irish resources that might just help to pay it off a little quicker.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/ireland-s-200bn-debt-burden-how-did-we-get-here-1.3943085

The only flaw in your argument, Maams, is the relationship between APEC and COSL.
"Apec has a strategic partnership with China Oilfield Services (COSL) and JIC Capital Management for oil development opportunities. It will receive 50% of the licence containing Barryroe."

Where "China Oilfield Services (COSL) is an oilfield services company. It is a majority owned subsidiary of Chinese state owned company CNOOC Group."

And "JIC Capital Management (Tianjin) Ltd. China Zhongtou Wealth Capital Management Co. Ltd is a private equity and venture capital firm based in Beijing, China. It is a subsidiary of China Jianyin Investment Co. Ltd."

So APEC might just be the glue but the other three look pretty robust to me.

Why not?

The original plan was to drill one well and a sidetrack. APEC came along and it turned into four wells and a sidetrack. So, if there is a shortage of money why not go back to the original plan if necessary and if Iolar comes good the big oil companies will be queuing out the door.

As for Providence upsetting DCCAE surely it is the other way round. DCCAE gave permission for the survey but made a pig's ear of it and Providence withdraw it rather than take years for DCCAE to go through the courts fighting An Taisce. The only issue there is the point that if APEC could not get the money now how were they ever going to do the survey and the drilling last year when the survey was approved? After all, we are talking peanuts in the greater order of things. Cairn Energy took a 30% interest in the Druid Drombeg drill for $42m so what is $19m in comparison for Barryroe?

I suspect the money is being held up by the Irish tax man. I sold a piece of land last year and the hassle I had from Irish revenue and the issues over rights of way you would think I was Bernie Madoff. I was as clean as a whistle but the extra costs of solicitors and accountants did not do my bank balance any good as all the hassle was at my cost. Not only that, but there is so much backlog in Revenue it took months to clear and things are probably even worse now.

The Irish taxman is currently chasing beef baron Larry Goodman. For those who do not know him, he processes most of the beef in Ireland. There is now an investigation concerning some assets he transferred to his wife.

So I wouldn't be surprised if there is a further delay with the money and I expect DCCAE are giving the approval a decent period of time so they cannot be accused of rushing the matter as they were accused of doing the last time.

I note PBP claim they have taken legal advice which says the government would not have to pay compensation if they banned oil and gas exploration.

Wrong. There are numerous examples where governments have had to pay compensation when they blocked certain activities, especially mining. And you can be sure the Chinese will be in the queue with Providence to claim it.

Perhaps Brid is the new Mandy Rice-Davies. For those old enough to remember the Profumo case they will remember Mandy Rice-Davis' famous , quote "He would say that, wouldn't he".

Yes Brid you would say you have taken legal advice but from whom???

I am not a big fan of baby or his daddy but the O'Reilly name still has some kudos in Ireand.

So if you or I put out the following message it would be meaningless but coming from Providence it will be heeded and put the skids under Brid's bill.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/providence-resources-to-seek-compensation-from-state-if-oil-drill-ban-passes-into-law-933660.html

This will be help the government to mothball the bill as it clearly states preventing exploration for oil and gas will cost the country a lot of revenue but will also results in big fines whereas Brid says it will be minimal.

For this alone Tony is worth his money to us because this threat by Providence will not be ignored.

Message getting through. Can be found in Irish Independent as well as here in the Irish Times, Ireland's most prestigous paper.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/explorer-providence-cuts-jobs-and-warns-on-climate-change-bill-1.3940302