The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Xxxxeye
A while back, I posted an extract from Justice Clerk’s ruling against Excalibur.
It states Hawrami was the Chairman of Exploration Consultants Limited, a company based in Henley, that provided consultancy services to E&Ps. A subsidiary of Exploration Consultants Ltd was used to produce the CPR for GKP’s initial IPO. The Company Memo’s of Association show that GKP Ltd was created out of GKP Algeria Ltd back in May 2004 and that GKP Ltd’s share capital was increased on 23rd July 2004, so I presume the IPO was on, or around, then.
Exploration Consultants Limited was incorporated on 19th December 1989 and is 100% owned by ECL Group Limited, which was set up later and incorporated on 29th September 1995.
The only subsidiary of Exploration Consultants Limited I could find, was a company called Geophysical Safety Resources Ltd, which was incorporated on 30th May 1996.
Hawrami, or rather, Dr Abdullah Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, as he’s known by Companies House, held Directorships in all of the above companies from 15th August 2000 to 30th June 2006, at which point he resigned from them all.
So there’s no doubt that The Doctor played a significant role in the initial IPO CPR.
Equipoise was founded by Don Scott, after the company he founded, Scott Pickford Group was taken over by a company called CoreLab in 1998 (https://www.erce.energy/history).
Hawrami is listed as having been a Director of a company called Scott Pickford Ltd (Co No 02153257) between 8th August 2000 and 30th June 2006. This company started life in August 1987. It was called Helpsquare Ltd back then. It later became Quad Consulting Ltd on 15th January 1991, finally taking the Scott Pickford Ltd name on 15th Jan 2003.
Andrew John Kirchin joined as a Director of Quad Consulting Ltd on 8th Jan 2003. The filings on the Companies House website show that he was also a director at Scott Pickford Group Ltd, Scott Pickford Ltd (Co No 1302137) and Core Laboratories UK Ltd.
Scott Pickford Ltd (Co No 1302137) changed name to Coreton on 3rd Jan 2003 freeing up the Scott Pickford Ltd name, which appears to have then be taken on by Quad Consulting Ltd, shortly after Kirchin’s arrival.
Hawrami was also a director at Quad Consulting when Kirchin arrived.
These are the circumstantial facts available on the Companies House and ERCE websites.
Is there a link between Hawrami, Kirchin, Don Scott and ERCE?
Over to you all for discussion and debate.
p.s. I also noticed that ECL was originall called Daromann Ltd.
Hmmm - Darloman23, are you Ashti in disguise? ;-)
Below is from the Court ruling,
"For the purpose of the IPO Gulf had to produce a “Competent Persons Report”, describing and assessing the company’s assets. The Competent Persons Report was carried out by a subsidiary of Exploration Consultants Limited (“ECL”), a company based in Henley-on-Thames, providing consultancy and operations services (seismic and well site geology) to exploration and production (“E & P”) companies. ECL’s Chairman was Dr Ashti Hawrami (“Dr Hawrami”), an Iraqi Kurd, who was in May 2006 to become the Minister of Natural Resources in the KRG. Gulf continued to use ECL’s services after the listing. Mr Kozel first met Dr Hawrami in 2002 or 20035 ."
No secret that AH was involved in the CPR early on. I vaguely recollect someone posting a link between people at ECL and people at ERC Equipoise back in the day, though to be honest , I can't easily trace those links now, so who knows if it was the case or not?
I'd hope...
Short term - get a deep on 90 day flow test by year end?*
Medium term - get all 4 deeps flowing over extended periods, FDP and CPR. Late 2021/early 2022?
Long term - get X number of deeps flowing (X=TBC in FDP), 2023 onwards?
* If they wait until A5 is sorted before tackling the others, this becomes a medium term gig IMO because, I think, they've done A5 some damage and it's got issues the acid won't resolve. There was no mention of the cracked pipe in any of today's Q&A responses. I hope I'm wrong and all is well, but I don't know if the silence on this is good news or bad news anymore.
With all timelines being framed in terms of medium to long term delivery, are our expectations being managed for an anouncement akin to
" after the August acid work on the deeps, announced in the RNS on Sunday 45th July 2200, we've only got 2 flowing, it's not worth it on the domestic netbacks and therefore everything's on hold. We now plan to sidetrack the shopping trolly and broken pipe on A5, try loads of new acid and then buy a 1980s Soda Stream with a billion shares issued at 6p, from an Oriziman family member, because apparently it will make a wizard ESP one day in the future, on Boaty McDrillface. Honest. I'm not very technical, you see, but the science seems plausible.
Then once we've come out of Covid 19 Wave 2 lockdown, we'll try putting the new acid down the wells too! If there's any left. Exciting times!"
All IM demented O.
:-)
Round of applause for Jason Bailey.
"To state these are exciting times in various updates are insulting to a private shareholder that has invested over £100,000 only to see the following update met by failure, especially given Mr Carver hasn’t actually bought any shares in the company himself, or at least been declared to the market which does not install confidence in what he is saying."
Well said that man. Given they've put this up on their website, do you think they get the hint?
Apologies, got my dates mixed up. The terms of the new payment mechanism were advised in the RNS's on 17th April 2020
It doesn't reaaly matter what the PSC says anymore. It's only ever been used as a guide by the KRG anyway and whatever terms were in it to compensate GKP for delayed payments have been disregarded.
I say this because of the RNS we recevied on 12th December 2019 which stated that the KRG payment proposal received was "in line" with those received by the other Kurdy oilers. In Genel's RNS of the same day they advised that the KRG have effectively forced the oil companies to provide them an interst free loan for the balance outstanding for "at least" 9 months. There is another line that states a payment mechanism will be set up to pay off the balance when Brent hits $50 per barrell. Even if Brent was at $100 pb today, the KRG have still wangled a way not to pay until January next year, at the very earliest.
Given the article that SS posted recently about Lakhani's involvement with our payments and the relationship he obviously has with Guthrie and Murray, two disgruntled former GKP directors with ana axe to grind, I'm starting to wonder if there's a Gokana account somewhere earning interest on the money we are owed.
Todd, can we have our cash back please?
All in jest, I think. I hope. IMO
Agreed. Triping out should not normally take very long.
I think 1h per 1,000 feet of well depth is the general rule of thumb.
But, factors affecting this rate are mud and whether or not the drill pipe is cracked, amongst other things.
The risk is If they pull the pipe too hard, whilst attached downhole mud gunk is sort of trying to vacuum it back, the cracked pipe could snap.
It could also snap anyway, just from the weight of the string below the crack. Need to be careful with this not to break the drill string, causing further delays.
Given these risks and A5's history, every day without news reporting that they've screwed up again, is a relief and a day nearer to getting the job done. Assuming they've actually started. IMO.
Interesting. Good find SS.
Curious that GKP weren't named as one of the oilers suffering from the Kurdy funds freeze, or that the history between Guthrie, Murray and GKP wasn't mentioned. Maybe that's for another article.
Well well
JF has finally done the decent thing and we actually got an RNS yesterday about a meaningful director buy. This is good.
Hopefully the new CEO appointment might be in the same vein as these two sudden acts of common sense. Who does everyone want at the helm?
I don't want TK back. Yes, he was far better at promoting the company and appeared to get on better with the KRG, but ultimately the guy did not have shareholders' backs e.g. the huge awards paid for by bonds that cost shareholders so dearly, the Exxon takeover rumours, Gokana's convenient memory loss. Nope, don't trust the guy.
So what about Adel Chaouch? Stack his record in Kurdisatn up against Ferrier's over the last 5 years and you'll see that JF had no excuses. Mr Chaouch managed to achieve so much more facing the same macro constraints as JF. He's done a good job at ShaMaran. I wonder if he might be interested in a crack at Shaikan. He ticks a lot of my boxes.
Or what about Gerbert Schoonman over at Hess? Looks like he's overseen some strong performance there.
I'm thinking they will probably go Dutch though. Max Brouwers over at Shell maybe?
p.s Nobull - I think the full name was Dr Cashti MoMoney. His boss also has a nickname, and is known as Baz around here :-)
Interesting that despite Remuneration being the most voted against resolution, Martin Angle, the remuneration committee chair romped it home and voter ire was directed toward JH and JF, the two other least voted for (Resolutions 8, 2 & 5). And they’re even going to review these 3 voting decisions with shareholders because they didn’t get 80% or more. Uh oh, some of us are going to get a call for daring to defy the Borg, sorry Board. Cripes. I hope it's not from the Peshmerga!
IMO we still need to complete SH-13 (SH-L) , drill SH-11 and complete the de-bottling necking at the PFs that was originally scheduled to finish at the end 2019. All when conditions allow. I’d say it’s going to be tight getting SH-L drilled by year end, even if they could start completing SH-13 today. SH-12 took c5months to drill. Q1 2021 is now my most optimistic hope for 55k bopd. If conditions allow.
Interesting that Garret Soden returns. I’m curious to know what Lansdowne think he's bringing back to the table.
I think I know the reason JF looked so unhappy to be there today. He’s not an oil company CEO. He’s a surfer dudes! That’s why he went to a Uni by the sea. And the AGM clashed with a very successful moonlighting gig he's got going on as a gang member on Sons of Anarchy and Mayans MC. True story, probably, IMO ;-)
Treasury shares cancelled. Check.
Payment received. Check.
Every little helps.
Good weekend all.
JF – “That leads us on to the next question, “Is the revised FDP still scheduled for this year, for 2020?”
Uh…well it’s going to be submitted as soon as we can, in due course. Uhm we had extensive discussions with the ministry of natural resources towards the end of last year and in February this year, but that’s all been suspended as a result of the Covid crises. And that’s pretty much in line with other operators too……... so we’re ready to go when others are”
IW - “As you’ll be aware we had a very good run in payments leading up towards the end of 2019. However things started to slow down and falter, uh around that point in time. That len, that lead to a proposal from the KRG that we received in April.
Uh in that proposal they reaffirmed their commitment to pay for the outstanding November 2019 to February 2020 payments, however the timing of those payments is uncertain due to the, the current environment.
Uh as we’ve noted previously a dialogue is ongoing and we look forward to updating the market as we progress.”
IW - “And then the final question that I have is “Can you explain how purchases of GKP shares at times of high oil prices for holding in treasury, are at low, at times of low oil prices value accretive to shareholders?”
Uh since the last AGM we’ve returned $50m to shareholder by way of share buy backs. We actually preserved those shares in treasury for the purposes of settling potential obligations related to the Value Creation Plan. As you’re all aware that, uh, vesting did not happen in the April May timeframe, so as a result we’re going to now move to cancel all but a small amount of those uh, treasury shares”.
IW - “The next question is “How much are you going to save from
a) Target Opex and G&A savings of at least 20%, and..
b) The process of reducing the ex-pat workforce c60%”
Uh on the, on the first point with respect to Opex and G&A…um, if you reference our 2019 financial statements as a, as a base, uh we are targeting to save at least uh $11m relative to those financial statements. Uh and as I noted because the cost structure's coming down over the course of the year, those savings will actually be much greater as we move in to 2021, all things being equal.
Uhm on the ex pat work force, uhm the ex pats were brought in predominantly to focus on the expansion plan for drilling and projects, so when we reduce that workforce, you’ll see those reductions principally through, uh capex.
As we’ve noted our capex programme is at 15% relative to 2019 and we remain on track to achieve our guided range of 40 to 48 million, uh net”
IW - “When we suspended the expansion programme we were uh, well progressed, in fact the only remaining key activities we had before completion were Shaikan 13, which we actually made good progress on drilling when we suspended that well. After Shaikan 13 we were planning to skid the rig over on the same pad in order to drill Shaikan L. And then finally there were some minor de-bottle necking works that were outstanding on the production facilities.
So as was noted, week..we look to restart this expansion project when the environment improves and with the resolutions of payments and at that point in time we’ll update the market on our, on our plans”
JH - “Then finally “Can the rationale please..please be explained, with the slightly more than 700,000 shares issued under the LTIP to Mr Weatherdon after three months work, can the vesting performance conditions be clarified?”
The LTIP award was in line with the company’s long term incentive plan, which was designed in accordance with good market practice. The scheme was designed to attract talent and ensure the retention of key personnel and the plan was approved at the 2014 AGM. The scheme is accessible to all eligible employees, which because Mr Weatherdon started this year, also includes Mr Weatherdon.
The awards vests in 3 years and relates to future, absolute and relative share price performance. I stress though that the remuneration committee retains discretion to review vesting outcomes to ensure fair reflection of performance over that three year period”
JH - “The question is “Why have so few of the board and senior management purchased shares in the company?”
Uh…I would like to stress that the team’s interests are very closely aligned with shareholders and much of the remuneration of the executive board is performance related. Purchases of shares by the board and senior management, we will keep under review”
Make of that what you will
Loving the state of his barnet :-)
Do you think they're all wearing shorts under the desk :-)
Cheers HL
Can you post up the meeting ID too please?
Not to worry if not, I expect a fait accomplis.