Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Wouldn't move the needle with Schlumberger as they are merely providing drilling services for a fee. Should have moved the needle for Block energy if real. Maybe it rose when the news first came out in 2022.
Thanks Looed. Just the luck of the business, and the vagaries of subsurface geology, FRR operating since the 90s unable to make such a discovery, along comes Block Energy just to the north and finds 160 BCF of gas. At $10 per MMBTU that's worth about $1.6 billion.
Shows Block owners (old):
https://www.griffincap.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Jindal-Petroleum-Georgia-Blocks.png
Looking at this map, most of the historical production and discoveries were in Block 12. Some in Block 11, part of which is in Kakheti.
http://georgiaoilandgas.ge/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/License-blocks-with-license-holders-2019-end.jpg
Looking at the two maps, it appears Block 12 is essentially the southern 1/3 to 1/2 of the Kakheti region, so the discovery could be in a non-Block 12 portion. Still, points to the existence of substantial reserves in the vicinity just like company said. 16 bcm is about 160 bcf, nothing to sneeze at.
This is a great find, keyser, maybe it's been posted here before.
This article shows the area of Block 12 in Kaheti region of eastern Georgia:
https://www.energy-pedia.com/news/georgia/frontera-resources-signs-mou-for-block-12-with-bhge-174999
And this one shows the Kaheti region in Georgia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakheti
Would be tragic if someone else had a commercial discovery in the old Frontera Block 12.
SN is a net negative in this investment. The company never had annual turnover of more than $5 or $6 million. Mostly they burned through a lot of investor money, including his own, but never found anything commercial. Theoretically, if he were corrupt, he might have been in a position to benefit from kickbacks from contractors in Georgia, but I suspect if anyone did that it was ZM not SN. He and his family had a huge personal fortune thanks to his dad being CEO of Conoco and Vice Chairman of Dupont. Frontera was his passion and he invested a vast amount of time and personal resources in it, but did not get any sort of return. Yet.
Purely a guess but perhaps they were being harassed online by former employees who were not being paid or were being sought by minions of ZM or Georgian government to testify in connection with the various legal actions in Georgia and decided to go off the grid.
Interestingly, former senior employees Giorgi Kalandarishvili and Levan Bakhutashvili have recently removed their LinkedIn profiles. They had left Frontera about the same time about 9 months or so after the de-listing, but continued to have their profiles up listing Frontera as a former employer. Could mean something could mean nothing, just thought it was interesting.
Yeah, they signed an NDA to look at data with a view to a potential transaction. That went absolutely nowhere. Like 99% of NDA's ever signed throughout the world. They probably looked at the data and took a pass, like every major before them.
"A great Report on BBC today. Piped Gas much less toxic to the climate change debate."
Laughable on its face.
The US court ended up accepting it (parroting the language given by FRC attorneys in the judgment), but it wasn't a matter decided by the court, just appears in the recitation of the factual background of the case. At the end of the day, the Georgians have to accept the validity of the assignment (which the arbitration panel decided against FRC specifically on this point) and the Caymans have to conclude this wasn't a fraudulent conveyance to avoid enforcement ahead of the posse (i.e., Hope).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-kalandarishvili-b512a4a8/
HIs LinkedIn profile reflects he left in October 2019.
The part they potentially kept their hands on were the portions where there was already existing production/discoveries from Soviet times, as listed in the PSA. No new commercial discoveries were made on the entire block during the period.
The arbitration settled that. Now that the PSA is expired, unless their force majeure claim was accepted or the government grants an extension, they have nothing.
"I have come to a conclusion, that there is no recoverable gas. Yes, there may be lots down there, but FRR has never proved it. It may simply be too expensive to extract. Before anyone jumps down my throat and mentions the flame photo again.. If the gas was extractable, and in quantity... Some super major would have pounced by now."
I agree with this. Other than the ancient (c 2005) pre-IPO report showing proved oil reserves at Taribani, FRR only had CPRs showing "resource estimates" not reserves for the vast quantities of gas claimed. They did not attract enough funding or have enough success to prove up anything. It may be there, but not economically extractable when compared to other global opportunities. And they data they did have, when combined with the political risks in Georgia after the Russian invasion in 2008, were insufficient to attract any buyers or deep pocketed farm-in partners.
Possibly no. If the PSC is expired or Green is allowed to keep FEGL and the PSC, then FRR shareholders have nothing. Except a judgement against ZM and a bunch of debts.
Brings to the forefront once again ZM's double dealing. SN in the US hearing denied the company received the funds. The Board was apparently unaware of the 2nd or 3rd amendment to the Green Capital deal that gave the security interest in the assets--ZM signed that over in Georgia. Then he purported to speak for the company after he had been fired in the hearings referred to below where FRGC supposedly agreed to hand over FEGL to Green. Then later, deliberately caused confusion among the Georgians by purporting to speak for American Frontera. The guys' a crook through and through.
New Management team? Pray tell!
They were never able to produce more than a few hundred barrels a day even at peak maybe 500. So much of oil and gas extraction is in the rocks, and Block 12 and Georgia in general were blessed with poor geology. The hope was the Kura Basin would be as good as it is downstream in Azerbaijan, but such was not the case. The Russian invasion in 2008 spooked a lot of potential investors and it was very tough sledding after that. There are many areas of the world with better rock and less risky. The resource may well be there but difficult or impossible to extract economically weighted against the political risks.
SN is the only one of those still involved. White and Bentsen left over a decade ago. Stanhope Place was/is owned by a former director of Frontera who also left over a decade ago. Those will all be dead ends. The only way to get anyone's attention is via a lawsuit and if you've followed this board over the last few years be prepared for difficulty serving process, delays, obfuscations, constantly changing counsel, etc.