Member Info for MarktheSpark

Is it an omen?

No, it’s just a bloody swan.

Yes FOIL will add to Hurricane’s credibility in the market which means that IF Warwick Deep produces good results they will be better received than otherwise. So possibly two good moves upwards which MIGHT start a small investor gold rush.

There are news reports that Saudi ships and oil infrastructure have been attacked allegedly by Iranian backed Yemeni groups. It makes complete sense, if Trumps applies sanctions on Iran then one hit back is to ramp-up action against US interests in the region, that being Saudi oil partly bound for the US. That means higher crude prices worldwide and especially in the US which turns into higher pump prices and consequential lowering of voter support for Trump. If Trump decides to retaliate this becomes another unpopular Miiddle-east military debacle like Iraq and even more likelihood of oil supply disruption. From the U.K.perspective in my view this illustrates there are more issues than climate change when deciding on energy policy, UK energy security being the main one of them. The risk of £2. a litre petrol is very real.

There are news reports that Saudi ships and oil infrastructure have been attacked allegedly by Iranian backed Yemeni groups. It makes complete sense, if Trumps applies sanctions on Iran then one hit back is to ramp-up action against US interests in the region, that is Saudi oil partly bound for the US. That means higher crude prices worldwide and especially in the US which turns into higher pump prices and consequential lowering of voter support for Trump. If Trump decides to retaliate this becomes another unpopular Miiddle-east military debacle like Iraq and even more likelihood of oil supply disruption. From the U.K.perspective in my view this means there are more issues than climate change when deciding on energy policy, UK energy security being the main one of them. The risk of £2. a litre petrol is very real.

Price of Brent Crude up 2% today on the back of Saudi Arabia reports that on Monday two of their oil tankers were among vessels attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. All this is part of ongoing US / Iran conflict and intra Middle East geopolitical disputes - very much a risk on scenario adding to the attractiveness of home grown resources.

Looks like Hurricane will be a small island of blue in a sea of red today with most of the market focussing on the ill-effects of the US / China trade spat.

It’s exactly as AWK predicted in a recent post, about 3 weeks from first oil.

It’s another step towards de-risking the investment for the big investors so a modest rise today and a further rise, with pauses for profit taking over the next three weeks.

Regarding Russian influence....a previous post...

An article has recently appeared on Oilprice.com entitled “The Beginning Of The End For British Shale Gas”. Interestingly and perhaps suspiciously the author was Viktor Katona an “Expert” at the Russian International Affairs Council; this Council is described by Wikipaedia as “founded on orders of then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to contribute to Russia's soft power efforts”

Along the same lines, the Keisser Report from the website, Russia Today an alleged mouthpiece of the Kremlin has described frackers as “the moral equivalent of paedophiles”.

Perhaps it is relevant that Anders Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary-General, has accused Moscow of campaigning to undermine shale gas and the US Director of National Intelligence said : “RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health. This is likely reflective of the Russian Government’s concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom’s profitability”.

In my view investigative journalism or even GCHQ should be investigating whether Russia may be supporting well-intentioned environmentalists with hard cash (perhaps without their knowledge), since by so-doing, Russian intelligence would gain Western mouthpieces to influence Western audiences in its favour.

I note that Amnesty International may adopt climate change as a “key issue” in other words may possibly support U.K. lorry surfers in the same way they might currently support torture victims or women’s rights activists across the world.

Chevron have just paid $33 billion for Anadarko the US Shale and LNG company, moving it to supermajor oil company status. Well someone’s got confidence in the future. Come on lads, CHEVIGAS sounds great.

I love the high street but the idea that you can hold back online sales is King Canute stuff. The high street will have to reinvent itself as an entertainment and service centre, possibly with many retail properties being converted into residential units. The government could help the transition by providing support for local councils who reduce rates on reopened properties. Very glad to see Tesco back on the up, long may it prosper.

Feels OK, close to first oil, Warwick spud due in April and Brent nearing $70, all news grabbing events which should kick the SP.

Apologies, for gb, read gigawatts.

Yes, just to reinforce your point, an executive of the National Grid told a House of Lords Committee that replacing gas central heating with electric would require a trebling of our electricity generation. So this morning’s demand is about 35gb and would be 35gb x 3 = 105gb.

Now there are various definitions of “green” or “low carbon” electricity generation but if we just take wind and solar, this morning wind is about 3.6gb and solar is practically zero. So what would be needed would be about a 29x increase in wind power.

If this was done there would be absolutely no guarantee it would have any effect on climate change because in the future the main driver of worldwide increased CO2 emissions is the economic development of the 3 billion people of China & India, followed presumably by Africa. A small statistic that struck me, only 18% of the world’s population has ever flown on a plane - eventually many of the remainder may want to, who are we to stop them.

Listen to Richard Snape (video link to the left of this screen). He stresses that in considering which stocks to pick one should consider the management team.......

I had always thought Dr Trice was ploughing a lonely furrow in developing basement plays in this part of the globe which was always a small negative but I see that Lundin, a Norwegian exploration company, drilled a successful basement exploration well in the Rolvsnes licence in 2018 and identified significant resources. They also say that some of the output from their Edward Greig platform may come from underlying fractures, more than previously thought. So all of that is somewhat reassuring.

I think I’m right in thinking that Dr T has suggested there are other areas in the UKCS & nearby that have basement play potential but have not even been touched yet.

Malcy's blog gives a link to an interview with Igas CEO Steve Bowler - interesting, and you can even see what a bit of shale looks like!

Perhaps the only surprise to me is the degree to which he stressed that they are still at the data gathering, exploration phase - looks like we are a couple of years at least away from being a commercial producer but he did suggest that 60 pads (each one the size of 2 football pitches) would halve our dependence on imported gas so a huge opportunity.

He noted that they already quietly produce 800K barrels a year from onshore conventional wells and that since 1969 about 60 weals have been drilled in the Gainsborough Trough without the world falling in.

All the more reason just to filter Mr 39p then he won’t bother you.

There’s good news and not so good news, firstly Edison values HUR at 102p but they remind investors that Dr Trice has suggested it might take 6 months to go from first oil to plateau levels, maybe 17K bd. So the first oil RNS message might be a damp squid (not sure what size) and my guess is it might be autumn before the SP really takes off. Just my guesswork.

Congrats to all the HUR investors, don’t get too excited about the SP; the real prize is first oil and in particular a run of production above 10K bd.

It’s worth noting that the band of shale is really thick at 150metres, much thicker, for example than in most of the US shale plays, it should enable multiple horizontal wells from a single site which would be both economically and environmentally advantageous.