Member Info for Manyana

Two points of interest.

The first is the appointment of a voice for the pro oil and gas industry in Ireland.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/former-government-adviser-to-head-oil-lobbyist-915036.html

The second is that Brid's Bill will get into the committee stage in June as per the following:

"People Before Profit’s Climate Emergency Bill will go before the select committee on communications, climate action, and environment, where it has significant TD support, on June 11."

And we think Brexit is bad, mad and run by the members of the lunatic asylum.

I agree with you Roadking that there is no comparison between the Barryroe and the IOLAR but there is a factual error in your assessment.

It was the department that made a procedural error in issuing the Barryroe approval until An Taisce, the leave it in the ground brigade , discovered certain anomalies regarding the EU directives that the department had overlooked and had a field day.

In order to expedite the issue while the"I've got nothing better to do group", went for a Judicial review which could have been dragged out ala Brid Smith, - potentially as long as Brexit, Providence decided to withdraw the approval and resubmit (obviously with grateful thanks from the DCCAE).

This time, I hope everything is in order and the loonies have nothing to complain about as we certainly don't want another Judicial review.

Hopefully the all clear will be sounded next week and they can get on with the survey and the drilling.

Hopefully the share price drop of the last week has been technical rather than based on information, to date, undisclosed to us.

Today was the last date for comments regarding the survey for Providence but is it possible our good enemies An , Taisce have something up their sleeves that as yet has not hit the fans that could result in another Judicial Review delaying the survey even further, not those that agree with us, but those that spread the manure around the place.

If it is the latter, then expect an RNS early next week that clarifies what directions we take. In the meantime, I am keeping my Providence investor money dry as I wait for a clarification. After all, at 11.65p the shares are now trading at at a discount to the 12p which, if there is no further objection to the survey and the drilling is a bonanza, as it is the price most institutions bought in at. Why?

If it is further flak from the NIMBIs (my interpretation, Not IN My Back Yard Id**ts) then we might as well kiss Barryroe further delays in drilling, if ever.

I think this answers the question whether this would affect Barryroe and the answer is "yes".

Barryroe is an SEL license "Standard Exploration License" which allows them to search for and assess a potential oil/ gas find and expires in 2021 based on certain activities.

If it is commercial, they will then apply for a Petroleum lease and you will note that the potential bill also says the minister should prevent a lease being issued if the CO2 levels exceed 350 parts per million.

The location in Hawaii, the Mauna Loa Observatory, is used as the basis of CO2 levels and it should be realised that 350 parts per million was passed in 1990 as per the following graph and has been rising ever since. So what are the chances that you would have a good month when the level fell below 350?

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png

So while this bill might be too late to stop the exploration license it could stop the lease from bringing the oil and gas out of the ground.

I am afraid, 1cagney you miss the point. Everything is political.

Perhaps you missed the subtlety of my last paragraph.

I was pointing out that Ireland is in hock up to its neck in debts that must be repaid and the UK loan could put Ireland in a very sticky situation if it cannot find the money to repay the loan by 2021 unless the UK treats us kindly which I would certainly now doubt given Ireland's attitude to Brexit. And should the Americans put paid to the benefits of the multinationals who are paying into the Irish economy,, as little as possible I might add, when combined with that pack of ******s, who think Ireland can do without revenue from such things as oil and gas want a bill passed which stops exploration offshore Ireland the net result will be that Ireland will, once more, be a banana republic.

The whole emphasis on what I was pointing out was that the England was willing to lend when no other country was. If it now calls in its loan by 2021, has Ireland got the readies to pay for it or must it go to the EU for another loan to repay the UK?

After all, while Ireland owes shed loads to the EU that is the very stick the EU will beat Ireland with if it ever tried to get out of the EU because it will take Ireland probably 100 years to repay that loan, if ever, as it is the third highest per capita loan in the world, but there is no time limit on it.

So for somebody to think Ireland could leave the EU they should think again unless a vast revenue stream from such as offshore oil and gas comes in. Otherwise our children's children's children will be praying to the great EU mammon for the rest of their lives not mind ours.

Here we have the Irish government panning England and causing stumbling blocks to a good Brexit and yet they are quite happy to forget that England baled Ireland out when the old Celtic Tiger swallowed its own tail back in 2010.

Back then, when Ireland was a dead duck, the UK lent Ireland £3.2billion pounds to dig it out of the mud. This has all got to be paid back by 2021 and to date Ireland has paid about £500m in interest but that only gives us another 2 years to pay of the balance of the debt.

So what happens when we either get Brexit cancelled or we end up with a bad Brexit because of this stupid, not to be implemented, "backstop"?

What attitude will our "friends" think of us then? After all. what other country lent us money to dig us out of that hole and why would England come to our rescue if we needed to, for example, extend the loan past 2021, because we could not repay it in full? Who will bail us out then; will any other country bail us out like England did the first time?

And why did the UK lend to us in the first place? Because, they said, "it is in the UK’s national interest that Ireland has a successful economy and a stable banking system.". After a bad Brexit, do you think they would be just as generous especially when our politicians are putting bricks in their path?.

And, finally, surely one of the great resources that could just pay off that loan without the interest is surely the development of an indigenous oil and gas sector especially if Donald Trump gets his way and Ireland cannot depend on the American corporations especially now Ireland has been declared a "tax haven", where will the readies come from then to pay our debts?

Beggars cannot be choosers unless you are Irish politicians.

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When daddy O'Reilly was a rich man he had a personal "nurse" to whom he promised bucket loads of shares in Heinz and Providence Resources.

We never did find out exactly what services she provided but they must have been good given his promise of millions of pounds worth of the things.

It now seems an American court does not accept that daddy's bankruptcy in the Bahamas was legit so she can now rekindle her claims as per the following article.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/exnurse-suing-oreilly-boosted-by-court-ruling-37951414.html

Perhaps she would be happy with a few share options instead.

The reason why the share options die this summer is because in 2009 Providence defined a ten year scheme which granted options on up to 5% of the company to the directors.

The assignment of 12m shares to TOR and 9m to O'Sullivan (et al.) in 2016 was issued as an amendment to the 2009 scheme which meant it did not have to be votged on by the shareholders and because that finishes this year in August the options under the ten year deal have to be exercised by then or they die.

So, they will have to create a new options scheme which the shareholders will have a vote on. What the terms of that deal are we might, as you say, hear in May, as well as a date as to when the vote will be taken.

Failing that, of course, the shares could go past 45c by August, in which case they can still exercise their options under the current scheme.

As far as shareholders are concerned, the price of the options will depend on the price of the shares. If it looks like we are on the pig's back why should we begrudge the people who created it and at 5% of the company is not a great deal for good results.

Interesting find wraith,

Providence posted in November that a site survey had budget approval but in Dunquin's case the operator is ENI and not Providence who hold 26.8% of the license.

I expect, though, like most thart the survey is one thing but they will wait for the result of the CNOOC drill to schedule a drill of their own. If CNOOC are successful and find buckets of oil, drilling in the Atlantic Margin will go mad and our Providence shares will be worth a fortune.

Rather the opposite. The closer we get to the end of the comment period the better I like it and that is Friday as long as the gremlins and the NIMBI(s) stay in the woodpile.

We know the An Taisce disagreement was a technicality and reading the documentation I believe it was because the original survey was permitted under nothing more than a different EU directive, so having fixed that I am pretty hopeful it will go through this time with no issues as, I am sure the CNOOC one did since we have not heard anything to the contrary.

The Babcock deal with Killorglin airport is further proof that things are moving in the right direction. The Babcock deal with Kerry airport will not directly benefit Barryroe because that will be serviced out of Cork, being only about 50K apart, but it does benefit the likes of Nexen who are out in the Atlantic and the precedent of that sort of service was highlighted last year when Providence drilled Druid/Drombeg as it cuts about 100km off the distance Providence had to travel between Cork and Druid which Providence used and was about 400km whereas Kilorglin to Nexen will be far more efficient.

Long term, Kilorglin will benefit Total and Providence if/when they drill Diablo and Avalon and if CNOOC have a successful find in FEL/318 the whole Atlantic oil will open up.

For the golfers out there, it is good to see Luke Donald back in good health and going so well at the Valspar golf tournament. Out for a year with a back injury, he is flying high in his first tournament back, The Valspar, and hopefully he will keep it going today and finish, if not the winner, then at least in a good healthy position.

As far as I can tell COSLInnovator has been twiddling its propellers in Norway since the middle of January when it came off a job in the North Sea.

If it has been waiting this long to start the Barryroe survey then its time twiddling is being costed to the Barryroe project. Given that all costs associated with an oil project can be recouped before any tax is paid and given that they find oil in Barryroe this is further tax losses to the Irish economy which should be getting 25% tax.

Shades of Corrib where costs were astronomical and over ran because of NIMBI messing that it will take years for the Irish government go get a penny tax out of that one.

Thank An Taisce for that tax loss even though they are actually funded by the Irish government through DCCAE.

Only another week to go for comments on Exola and then if OK we should really fly.

Why all this panic over Capital Group selling Providence shares?

The Capital Group is a major investor with about $1.8trillion invested so the Providence shares are small potatoes to them.

For example, Capital Group has is a major financial presence in Norway who have vowed, as of 8th March, to sell up it oil and gas shares with exception of Shell and Exxon. So, the chances are that Capital Group are selling Providence on behalf of the Norwegians at any price as it previously owned shares in about 150 oil companies.

So, while we might see this as a bad financial decision it is quite possible the Norwegians see it as part of their strategy to get rid of low value fruit such as Providence.

Who knows, who cares? But not too important in my book as long as we get past the DCCAE and the survey approval.

I note that the final submissions to the Minister at DCCAE has now been brought forward from 1st of April 2019 to 29th March 2019.

At least they will not now have to wait over the weekend for the submissions if any come in at the last moment.

It looks like that Nexen have passed all their information requirements so that must bode well for Providence as I believe both had not submitted exactly what had been requested under the 2014 directive but obviously now have.

Clear run starting April 1, hopefully - after midday of course.

From the announcement of Farenfore and the deal with Babcock it would appear Nexen has now crossed all its bridges and satisfied the DCCAE with the survey at IOLAR, Frontier Exploration Licence FEL3/18.

Until that happened and full approval had been given I am sure Babcock would have not finalised the deal with Farenfore airport.

For those who followed Providence last year on the Druid/Drombeg they will remember that all the flying crew and the management when they went out to the rig, were flown from Farenfore on a regular basis with about three for four flights a week to the rig.

This was a contract with CHC helicopters, see: https://www.oedigital.com/news/446710-chc-inks-druid-drombeg-support-contract

What is important for us is that if Nexen must now have given the full green light, hence the Babcock deal, so then the technical problems with the An Taisce Judicial Review must have been overcome as I am pretty sure the extra information Nexen supplied to DCCAE as of February with a termination date of 10th March probably also answers the shortcomings, if any, of Providence's which have now been corrected in the revised application with a completion acceptance by 1st April.

Babcock are "big cheese " in the engineering world in many sectors including marine and would not be doing this if they did not see a big future off the West coast of Ireland. Barryroe servicing, of course, will just be handled, I presume from Cork airport since it is far closer to Barryroe than Farenfore even though it might be more effective to use Farenfore instead of setting up a new contract.

https://www.babcockinternational.com/What-We-Do/Aviation

Remember, a "Judicial review is primarily concerned with the procedural legality of a decision".

So a Judicial review, in this case, can only be brought by a body with the power to do so. You and I could not bring a Judicial review against Exola but An Taisce can and being nitpickers they are always looking for something.

Comparing Nexen( who now call themselves CNOOC Petroleum Europe Limited ) whose approval to develop was originally granted but who were subsequently requested to supply further information it would appear that the discrepancy in both was that they were carried out under the wrong EU Directive and had not catered for the fact that the EU Directive they used was out of date and "had been amended".

Submissions on the CNOOC deal had to be in by the 8th of March. We have passed that so let us see if there are any holdups/ If they are not, then the same should apply to EXOLA.

It is nitpicking like this that gets lawyers paid astronomical sums of money an hour. Nits are very small and sometimes very hard to see until you start to scratch them.

The minister approved the first one which, obviously at the request of the department withdrew because of a departmental mistake, is surely only suspended as long as the mistake is covered in the second.

And, in fact, there is no proof that the department actually made a mistake based on the judicial review which was very inconsequential.

So, surely if there are no objections up to 1st of April 2019 the approval will be granted by default. Why would there need to be a delay? Everything other than the An Taisce query has already been dealt with. There is surely no need to go over old ground.

If, on the other hand, a non-frivolous objection was raised, then it would need to be reviewed and that might take some time but what are the chances of such an objection appearing given that obviously only a very tenuous objection was raised the last time by that NIMBI group, An Taisce as a purely stalling tactic.

That was probably to give time for the famous Brid Smith bill on climate change and oil exploration to grow some legs. Unfortunately for her that bill has now been cut off at the knees (or is the ankles?)

No problem.

The hope is that there will be no objections so it will become active pretty well immediately given that they voluntarily cancelled the previously granted one on a very dubious technicality not of their making to save the department's blushes..

The official statement says:

"This application was posted on the Department's website on 27 February 2019 and any submission received by close of business on 1 April 2019 will be considered by the Minister."

April Fool's day.

Don't blame me!!

The breakup of the URL is a problem for websites when they are very long and they split them up over multiple lines so that sections get misplaced..

The solution is to do exactly what wraith suggests and you will be OK.

Good luck