Member Info for MarktheSpark

Just a note on your maths. $175K a week is $700K a month or $8.4million a year, which I guess amounts to over 2p a share. There is a question about the $40 a barrel figure. There is a significant risk that the lack of investment in O&G exploration over the last few years will lead to a world supply crisis in 2019/20 with a significant possibility of oil supply strain and oil at $80 again. Also UKOG have said they see the present drilling campaign is just the beginning of at least a three well pad with production around 3000bd which would be profitable indeed.

One of the problems is that our friends on the site don’t seem to be there all the time (maybe they could clarify that). 2 lorries spotted in a 4 hour watch say might mean quite a few are missed which makes a big difference to our guess-timates of flow rate.

There’s also a problem with UKOG quoting peak flow figures in their earlier press releases, it sets up an expectation to the city guys that the steady flow rate will be similar and anything less might be seen as a failure. May guess Is that the KL4 rate will be 3-400 bd which would give a total for site so far of 800ish. This would make it the best producer in the U.K. after Wych Farm but will the city see that as a success, I don’t know. Just IMHO.

Am I right, Egdon’s revenue for last year was only £1million so at a stroke this investment in Ceres has nearly quadrupled their income for the coming year. Good news.

From Malcy's Blog.....

Tinker Lane is "a vertical multi-core well primarily targeting the Bowland shale formation but also a number of other formations"

I guess Igas are primarily looking for Shale Gas resources but given the history of the area (100 oil wells tapped during the Second World War) it is possible that there may be untapped oil resources Ex-BGS geologist Nick Riley wondered in one of his videos why the Government had not included oil in their contract to the BGS for the Bowland Survey. Fingers crossed. I guess about a month for the drill then about 3 months for the analysis so maybe March / April for results though they can get preliminary opinions from just eye-balling the cores as they are laid out.

Firstly Trump may be happy with the low oil price but the US oil industry won’t be, nor will the Saudi’s or the Russians. A low oil price will continue to restrict new investment which, as the IEA has predicted, will lead to a massive shortfall of oil supply in the early 202O’s. As soon as that fact reaches the mindset of analysts this will create a “risk on” sentiment which will reverse the current trend. In other words Trump must be careful not to slay the golden goose.

We don’t know how the price effects Igas profits, they seem to hedge much of their output a few months ahead and we simply don’t know what price they’ve negotiated.

Most oil assets industry-wide are declining producers and I agree that they need some extra investment to beef up their older assets. Igas have plenty of promising acreage. If either Cuadrilla, The Horse Hill Kimmeridge flow test, or indeed the Tinker Lane exploration come good then Igas will have no difficulty attracting investment.

Please note that the recent extraordinary increase in wholesale gas prices has led to coal moving back higher into the supply stack. If gas is in short supply and high in price then we use more coal to generate electricity. I guess that’s just Week One economics.

I remember a BGS geologist saying that, in his opinion, the eastern part of the Bowland Shales (where Tinker Lane is) were the most promising areas for shale exploration in the area. Sorry I can’t find the original video or the name of the person but I remember it clearly.

By the way if you are interested in the geological background to shale exploration, just Google videos of Nick Riley or just “shale gas, BGS” and you will find some accessible short lectures giving the background, which are very encouraging.

Just a note to report that the wholesale price of electricity rose to over £200 per megawatt hour yesterday during peak hours. We hardly saw those levels outside very cold periods last winter. Renewables, especially solar of course, made little contribution to the supply stack. The high price of gas is driving coal back into the market even with the carbon levies. All this will eventually lead to higher electricity prices which will start to impact on the health of those unable to pay bills.

I my opinion SS shoots himself in the foot with some of the numbers he quotes. He reports that KL4 flowed at 901bd for a 4 hour period. Unfortunately that figure then becomes the expectation against which final sustained rates will be judged, anything less will tend to be seen as a disappointment even though at the actual rates he’s likely to achieve are will still be a commercial success. Anyway I guess the lorry counters (many thanks to them) will give us an early warning. A sustained rate of near 900bd is going to mean 4 or more lorry exits every day.

BTW it’s worth mentioning again that the IEA are forecasting that world oil supplies will be 12mbd short in 2020 which means crude at $100 which is the price environment UKOG will be selling into when they get into decent production. I haven’t done the maths but I suspect this makes UKOG a very decent investment even at moderate production levels.

I thought Cuadrilla news had gone quiet, apparently according to Drill and Drop they now arn’t publishing daily reports about fracking site, seems sensible. Bit like a fart that nobody notices, does no harm, no need to announce it.

I guess institutional investors will eventually look at longer term trends in the world oil market. Currently large oil companies are being prevented by their shareholders with a low-carbon sentiment from making the necessary huge investments in new oil exploration. Almost nobody is allowed to say they are pro-oil at the moment.

As a result, the recent IEA report predicts “The world risks a sharp tightening of oil markets in the 2020s, with too much reliance on US shale to fill a looming supply gap caused by under-investment”

The IEA sees a potential 13 million b/d supply gap opening in 2025 as result of a 'mismatch' between demand and new conventional project approvals. india in particular is expected to massively increase it’s demand. A 13mill shortfall means $100+ oil just when Horse Hill is in full production.

Government scientists call for people to eat less red meat if we’re to meet greenhouse emissions targets ‘Enteric fermentation’ in cattle, which causes them to fart and burp, produces the equivalent of 23m tons of CO2 a year.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/people-need-to-eat-less-beef-and-lamb-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

Clearly every cow should be fitted with a pair of these, flatulence absorbent underwear. https://myshreddies.com

RNS message on 18th July said the company was at "the very early stages of our 150-day test campaign at Horse Hill' . I guess their plans must be flexible but if we translate "very early stages" into say " 2 or 3 weeks in" then we could be hopeful of a report by about the end of November at least. I guess all the lorry departures and gas stack activity must add to that optimism.

By the way, anyone know, if the pump is still working, does that mean they are still removing the brine and cleaning the well? I guess they'll need a 5 day flow test so does that only begin at the end of the clean-up period or can the two operations overlap. Thanks.

Just bought 250K shares at 1.95. Good luck all. Keep counting those tankers.

Thanks for your help.

Can anyone tell me...
1. Where the information about 50 tankers leaving the site comes from, is the source reliable?
2. Where does the waste water go, could some of it be in the tankers?
3. Similarly where does the information about pumping come from , again is it reliable?
4. Does anyone know what stage the flow tests are at, are they testing KL3 or KL4 at the moment.
Thanks in advance. I don't read very post so some of this may have been covered before.

Regarding the announcement of th cornwall Geothermal project...

“Radon and background radiation is naturally produced by the granites and clays of Cornwall. The radioactive decay is the reason the granite is heat producing. During drilling the level of radon emitted is not considered to have a significant impact and water quality will be monitored and carefully managed.”

On first look this appears a fascinating project with huge potential but isn’t it interesting that reassurances like “water quality will be monitored and carefully managed” and “Longer term, any build-up of radioactive minerals will be safely removed from site and dealt with” (Cornwall Council). are so easily taken at face value in the context of renewable energy projects but dismissed when connected to Shale Gas.

Gridwatch says Biomass is producing 3.02GW of U.K. electricity this morning which is about the highest I can remember, DRAX must be going at full tilt.

Riz is now a celebrity - one of the Frack Free Four - appearing at Totnes on Sunday - don’t know how the hall is being heated. Sad for him, trapped in a role he doesn’t even believe in.

Yes, the Cost Of Green Subsidies Rises To £66bn In Next 5 Years - from the OBR independent fiscal watchdog via the Not a Lot of People Know That website.

Let's shout that - £66 BILLION

That's about £2500 per household in higher bills.

Most of this will come from renewable obligation certificates which are now closed to new applications but the existing scheme will continue to pay out for a few years yet.

In relation to the 0.8 event recorded today, a quote from the expert BGS site…

“Seismic activity is not unexpected since hydraulic fracturing is generally
accompanied by microseismicity (very small earthquakes that are too small to be felt).”

Looking up the Richter Scale on Wikipaedia, tremors under 1 are not even thought worthy of description but ..
1 to 1.9. Microearthquakes, not felt, or felt rarely. Recorded by seismographs. Continual/Several million per year.
2 to 2.9 Felt slightly by some people. No damage to buildings. Over one million per year

Remember that the Richter Scale is a logarithmic Scale which means each level is 10 times greater than the next lowest. So the 0.8 event recorded today is 10 times smaller than an event categorised as an “microearthquake”. Though let’s be clear, considerable pressure is being applied to fracture the rock. The fractures are then held open by sand which acts as micro “pit props” and the natural pressure at depth then drives the natural gas out of the billion year old compost heap we call shale rock.