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I was beginning to feel quite negative, but this article is so obviously based on material fed to the journalist by the ex-AAOG/Jub shower, who are desperate for Zen to fail having lost much face, that I think things look rather positive for Zen, or they wouldn't have bothered.

Ezhik, you are right that issuing more shares won't achieve much. And since AC is the biggest shareholder he would have most to lose. If I understand the strategy correctly it is to accumulate a portfolio of already producing assets which can be used to improve the credit rating and thereby enable the bond programme to get back on track - an above 10% yield vs zero or worse should attract some high yield funds. The investment in Tunisia fits this strategy, and if followed by similar deals in Congo and Gabon, then the 2.5p placement may be triggered. That would represent a 400%+ gain from this level, with some indication of where we stand hopefully next week.

Conference Call on 20th August - Thursday next week. Surely AC would not have organised that without having some news to disseminate regarding the progress of the various deals in W Africa. Any decent progress should reverse the share slide. Not long to wait.

is a place where connections count. ZEN have Andre-Brice Boumbendje as a paid advisor (also advises the Oil mInistry) and are working with Mberi Oil & Gas - amongst the shareholders are Simeon Edzo Mezui (ex-Addax) and Elie-Joel Mboumba (director of Petro-Gabon) . These guys ought to be able to produce a deal that triggers the 2.5p placement, which will certainly change the market view of ZEN.

Some news regarding the (presumed) Gabon acquisitions, triggering the 2.5p placement, would do the trick.....

I certainly hope that with all the opportunities available in Nigeria, Niger, and the wider region, together with a "nonsense" share price, a cash dividend is the very last thing on the management's mind. It would be massively expensive in terms of opportunity cost, virtually an admission of management failure.

Thanks for that 123tor, this is obviously the reason AC is so excited about the region - there are undoubtedly multiple opportunities which could be be transformative for ZEN, and hopefully with the help of the local Congoese and Gabonese advisors we have on board AC can pull off a couple of decent deals.

I don't think there is any mystery here. TW operates a subscription site so searches for anything he can advertise as a "bombshell" on any company in order to attract subscribers. The fact that he doesn't understand the background or context of the information he broadcasts is irrelevant to him, he is interested solely in increasing subscriber numbers. The removal of the permit from AAOG on the face of it looks like his perfect "bombshell" - the fact that there are various possible scenarios surrounding this move by the Ministry, some of which could have a positive outcome for ZEN, together with the fact that this does not remove the leverage of the $5m claim, obtained for $200k by AC, is of no interest to him.

itisagame - ZEN still have leverage; they still have the $5m claim....presumably if they make enough noise they can delay any new licence award by firing off legal actions which bog everybody down in Congo and international courts....or they can let the claim die in return for a new licence.

Looks to me like a face saving exercise by the Congo Ministry bureaucrats - they need to show their bosses that they have punished AAOG for their miserable performance by withholding $5m and not renewing their permit. If AC allows the AAOG claim to die by liquidating the company after transferring the assets and people to Zenith Congo it's possible he'll be awarded the new licence for helping out.....

Interesting that he emphasised several times Tunisia as being a systematic place - the inference being that Gabon/Congo/Nigeria are more places where charm, connections etc can open doors. By linking up with local advisors and companies there has to be a reasonable chance that he can pull off a few deals which would be minor irritants for the majors but transformational for ZEN.

Has anybody seen the "bombshell" letter? Presumably it is just a formal reminder that the original licence terminates on 18 July and an invitation for an application to renew, which has been submitted as per an RNS. I suspect business in this region depends more on who has the ear of the president and other senior politicians rather than being conducted via "bombshell" letters which come into the possession of subscription based stock commentators like TW.

Since we are presumably right in the middle of negotiations for the "transformational" licence, it is difficult to imagine any investor signing up for the placement without some kind of steer on the outcome from AC; which is going to lead to an appearance of insider trading if successful and a mightily ****ed off investor (another one) if not. Of course the most likely scenario is the kelbells/ezhilkian view that AC simply has no clue what the ministry is thinking and is just winging it as usual.

Alexios, 60m shrs were issued, only 35m sold at .7p raising GBP 260k approx, the rest are in treasury.

Ezhik, your theory matches the results so far, but, given AC's shareholding, he'll make a lot more money for himself if he can pull off some of the deals than if he just keeps claiming good lunches on expenses and stealing the paperclips.

The Niger CPR talks about "recovering" some oil from a couple of the wells, but there was no flow testing. It also talks about high water saturation, although says there are analogues which are good producers. So it looks to me as if they need to prove that these wells can flow commercially before doing any more drilling.....

A couple of questions as I haven't followed this stock perviously: SAVE already drilled 5 wells and had 5 successes so why would they want to drill more right now - surely their focus should be on beginning to monetise what they already have? If I understand correctly early production system costs are in the order of $14m, and they have more than this in the bank? Why do they need a partner, other than CNPC, whom they obviously need to work with as CNPC own most of the existing and future infrastructure?

Hard to say since the company is likely to issue more shares if the price stays above 1p. Remember the "institutional investors" (lol) also dump over 4 million shares at the lowest 10 day VWAP every month from the St Valentines Day ESA. Not to mention the outstanding $1mil death-spiral CB.

AGEOS, the problem with analysing any production forecasts, financing arrangements, strategic objectives or in fact anything at all put out by Zenith is that they have consistently proven to be total fantasy in the past. For example, the 31 March 2020 RNS concerning the equity investment of $2mil at 2.5p when the market price was below 1p...which was immediately followed by a placing at 0.7p, lol. Or the "Norwegian Shed" episode.

Thank you, AGEOS, for your eloquent description of the potential in Tunisia. Without doubt, great potential also exists in Congo, as it did, of course, in Azerbaijan. But funding a meaningful drilling campaign will not be easy, with AC's Panglossian folly so firmly in the opera buffa tradition.