Member Info for Nozzleblast

As the nature of the business is "binary", and the world is random, one can expect clusters of underperformance, but on average, and over time, if the management is competent, the performance should be positive, at least based off historical averages.

This is the million dollar question - was the prior good performance random, or the current losses. Was the management competent then, and incompetent now, getting carried away with easy wins and losing sight of risk management?

If so, is there more losses to come? If so, then NAV is meaningless, because it will be spiffed away, and the company is done for. Where does the blame lie?

As I can't answer those questions, I will be staying away, no matter how cheap the company appears to be.

Even after the 20 Mil AUD loss announced today, there is still about 94Mil AUD (47 Mil UKP) equity, so the discount to book value is an astonishing 80%. This implies that they will keep losing cases. The string of losses is extraordinary, given the up-till-now track record.

The share repurchase is not "worthless". If you read the annual reports, you will find that the company had to excersize almost 60 million warrants that were granted at flotation. They have now been extinguished; the balance is NIL. The share awards to the management amount to several million dollars per year, and have a small impact on the overall numbers, but I they create an incentive for the management to be aligned with the shareholders.

I expect that the warrant holders may have done some profit-taking over the last year, depressing the share price. All this will iron out eventually, and as long as the company keeps marching ahead, the share price will follow.

Hear hear!

Any business in the real world, has to deal with issues. It's income will fluctuate for to circumstances beyond its control. What matters is that on average, and over time, they deliver more good news than bad, and if when compared with other assets they do their job better, then they are worth having (at a decent enough price). I don't care for the short term bad news, not that there is any.

Https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/08/sir-jim-ratcliffes-abandons-uk-investment-north-sea-tax/

Mr Gilvary said: “We have stopped investing in Britain. Our future investment will not be [in] the UK. There’s no question of that. The problem is that the UK has become one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world from a perspective of natural resources and energy.

It means we cannot invest with any certainty because we can’t be sure what future tax rates will be.”

He added: “For us, the future lies in other countries, mostly the United States. The United States has got a long track record. In the 1990s, it was producing 6.5 million barrels of oil a day and importing five million, but now it’s producing oil and gas equivalent to 13 million barrels a day and exporting. That’s proper energy security and a proper fiscal regime. The United States absolutely understands the importance of domestic supplies and how you can drive economic growth off the back of it, so that that’s the place where we’ll be.”

Sekforde, thank you for your support, I agree with you. I bought Sereca in several tranches over the last summer, making it my biggest holding, and sold for about 40% profit a few months later (including the dividends). Since then I found several other assets that generated several hundred percent, (none in the oil industry, and I don't post about them on here either.)

I am sure that Serica is a great asset to hold long-term, however, it is not as outrageously undervalued as it was at 120, I believe that there are other opportunities out there offering better returns for an enterprising investor.

Thank you for the explanation. However, this board frequently discusses alternatives such as EnQuest, Harbour, etc. Comparing Serica to others is useful and informative, and I believe it does add value to the discussion. I know I like to see others mentioning competition, as it points my research.

If I were to mention a company in an unrelated field, it would not add value to the discussion here.

Regarding my analysis of PTAL, I do not claim it to be perfect; I am sure contributors here can do their own research.

Overall, given the reception here, I will refrain from sharing my ideas in the future.

1. It is a £400 million company, and I am a VERY small investor, there is plenty of liquidity, unless you are buying or selling millions of dollars worth of stock.

2. Currently, I am buying, having discovered this gem only a few days ago.

3. Implying that I could try and manipulate the salty crowd on here is ridiculous.

4. I thought that it did not need to be spelt out on here, but there it is - DYOR.

PetroTal (PTAL) are quietly buying back huge amounts of its own stock, having compounded its capital at 46% per year over the last five years.

Being registered in Texas (but traded on AIM), they pay only 30% tax. Dividends are $60M, and the production is growing even ahead of expectations.

I looked at a lot of places, and they are virtually unknown and overlooked. I can only assume for the weird combination of being quoted in CAD on FT and Google, in UKP on WSJ, listed on AIM, and registered in Texas. But what a cash machine! The P/E is about 4, for a company that earns $111 million in the clear on under $400 turnover, and returning most of it back to the shareholders, while compounding equity at 46%.

Thank you so much!

I tried buying AA4 through my broker iweb-sharedealing, but they don't support this stock, as it is trading on the "specialist" sector of the London Stock Exchange. Could you please recommend a broker that will hold and trade AA4? Thank you.

Netflix is going from strenght to strength, fully recovered from the strike. Yet, Zoo Digital is not following. What is going on?

The Market is pricing Zoo Digital as junk - at just 20% of its turnover. A rights issue will not raise any money, as if the company will continue with losses, even 50% dilution will provide only temporary respite.

If the company is valued at balance sheet - breakup value, then it is overvalued x10. Zoo Digital never turned much profit, but the executives are paid well. I bought into it at 54 on expectation of a turaroud, but I was wrong.

I don't know what a good turnout could be - a better gross margin (EBITA does not impress anybody if you haven't got strong balance sheet, sorry)? No hope in hell.

UK film and TV production jumps as Hollywood bounces back from strikes

Pinewood, Leavesden and Elstree studios in demand as bases for Hollywood blockbusters https://on.ft.com/4jPtpdc

https://www.ft.com/content/662e931b-c5c1-4837-ab4c-8422952e6fdd

Film production increased 56 per cent to £2.1bn in 2024, while high-end TV production and films made for streaming services hit almost £3.4bn — an increase of a fifth on 2023.

Https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/03/trump-attacks-labours-decision-to-abandon-north-sea-oil/

"Donald Trump has urged Sir Keir Starmer to “open up” the North Sea and “get rid of windmills”, as the president-elect attacked the UK Government’s energy policy.

In an outburst published on social media, Mr Trump said the UK was making “a very big mistake” by retreating from oil and gas, which clashes with his pledge to “drill, baby, drill”.

Shares in UK-focused oil and gas producers spiked as tax changes were less tough than feared.

Harbour Energy’s stock climbed 1.6 percent to 277p while Serica Energy climbed more than 4 per cent to 143p as chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her Budget.

She confirmed plans to increase the windfall tax rate on North Sea oil and gas drillers to 78 per cent, extend it to March 2030, and remove investment allowances.

However, she also said she would maintain 100 per cent first year capital spending investment allowances, as well as decarbonisation allowances, and did not announce further changes.

Https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/27/french-oil-giant-legal-battle-plan-shut-north-sea-terminal/

"Plans to shut down a vital terminal in the North Sea have sparked a bitter legal row over claims it will damage the UK’s oil and gas production.

The proposal by French energy giant TotalEnergies to decommission the Gryphon terminal, which serves four offshore oil and gas fields, has triggered a claim from a rival operator.

Nobel Upstream, which operates two of the fields reliant on the Gryphon, has launched a judicial review in a last-ditch attempt to halt the process.

However, rather than suing TotalEnergies, Nobel Upstream has issued its claim against the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which has signed off on the closure."

"North Sea output to halve by 2030 under Labour tax proposals, warns report

Wood Mackenzie says sector risks being ‘fatally wounded’ by the government"

https://www.ft.com/content/ba6f0830-150b-46bb-bb8c-d90424f3bf04

Https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/07/oil-gas-north-sea-ban-licences-labour-tuc-criticises/

The Energy Secretary’s proposal to tackle climate change will face strenuous opposition at the Trades Union Congress next month, over fears it could put 200,000 jobs at risk.

The Unite union - one of the country’s largest - said the scheme could be as devastating as the closure of Britain’s pits in the 1980s and 1990s in the wake of the miners’ strike.

“We will not let them suffer the equivalent of the coal closures, which broke the back of mining towns across the UK,” they said.

In a motion to be debated at the TUC, the union said it was “dismayed” that the government had gone ahead with an “arbitrary target” to stop drilling in the North Sea, before any plan for jobs had been agreed.

They can be raving mad and talk about building communism in the UK, the question is whether the system will allow them, and the answer is no.