Member Info for onedaysoonish

For any newbies here..... Welcome to CASP! The results look in line with expectations for 21 with the 3AB provision driving the headline loss that overhauled an operational profit. There was always the likelihood that the 21 results would dictate sentiment for a month or so even though this is old news and the financial position in 22 is much improved.

141 news hinted at being close. If it's a success the SP could be back in the 5's? Encouraging news that there may be interest in buying the boat. I, for one, would be happy to see the boat gone but I wouldn't be expecting big money for it.

Focus on driving the shallows towards the 5k BOPD target was also encouraging, as was the view on KEBCO. I understand why they are continuing to progress the deeps but i would view any deep success an a bonus rather than a likelihood.

The only real change this morning is that we have had confirmation of the impact of a tough year for the business 6 months after it finished. I don't do the "opportunity to top up" narrative but there where no new red flags for me this morning so maybe......

All IMHO of course GLA.

Or billions?

The Russian nuke threats started within the first few days of the war so the west have had time to look at potential scenarios and their possible consequences. A real threat or just another series of Russia's ongoing policy of disinformation?

What they can do about it is beyond me. Did they ever develop the plasma bullet technologies - hi tech missile destroying technology that travel at 10,000km/sec - that they were developing in the early nineties or was that work cancelled at the end of the cold war? What else might the black world have come up with in the last 30 years?

Is Putin's paranoia about NATO on his doorstep really a result of a 19th century mindset or is Russian intel telling him that the US has some very effective short range weapon systems and anti-missile technologies that might render Satan 2 impotent? Is Putin just mad enough to deploy nukes in what is in all probability a misguided belief that Russia can win or are Russia just trying to convince us that's the case to gain leverage? Are there smart minds in Russia that understand that they can only take this so far before the complete annihilation of Russia is a real risk? How long can the conventional war drag on in Ukraine before both sides suffer so much attrition that there are real peace talks?

So many questions and so few answers. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the offices of power at the moment.

Come on then Clive, let's be avin it! Let's see the 21 FY results and the divi payout please. Wouldn't mind an operational update as well. Have we started the horizontal work-overs at 141/151? Production numbers would be useful as well.

As for the technical stuff? I don't know enough to draw any firm conclusions but it can be a self fulfilling prophesy so let's see.

GLA

I wouldn't rule any Russian action out. It's been speculated that the CPC storm damage was skulduggery so who knows? The problem is that rational behaviour went out of the window on 24th Feb and Russia are looking for ways to hurt western interests even if that means cutting off their nose to spite their face.

The war is still not really going Russia's way and Putin is all in so what cards does he have left to play? The west are looking increasingly like they want this to turn into a long battle of attrition. They appear to be supplying just enough arms for the Ukrainians to force stalemate on Russian initiatives. Not enough of a counter offensive to force Russia into using nukes but enough to keep a conventional war grinding on.

Politically time is not on Putin's side. He is hoping for compassion fatigue from the west but as the war has dragged on and China/N Korea eye up any potential reaction from the west to their aggressive aspirations the stakes are just too high to back off. Appeasement looks off the table at the moment despite the French and Germans looking like they might support a settlement that Russia would sell as a victory. This has become about destabilising Putin's Russia and letting the clock run down on the willingness of the Russian people and the elite to pay the price of this miscalculation.

For KAZ and CASP its about having contingency plans in place to mitigate Russian, or further western sanctions that might impact the present distribution routes and to have longer terms plans in place to deal with any future fall out from a long and protracted war.

All IMHO of course GLA

KK, I agree. 5k BOPD from the shallows should take us back into double figures even with some geopolitical uncertainty? The truth is that this will be a multi bag from where we have been earlier this year! The West needs Kazakh oil. In fact it needs oil from anywhere other than Russia. The present 'Oil Washing' activity will be outed at some stage and the demand for non Russian oil can only go north in the short to medium term at least.

War or no war sanctions will be in place for years and I don's see anyway back for Russia while Putin is in charge, nor do I see this changing if he hand picks a successor? I can't put a time line to this but any welcoming of Russia, and Russian energy, back into the global economy looks a long way off so I would have to conclude that the POO will stay strong for the foreseeable.

Sorry to hear that you and some people in your team have been burned in the Crypto crash. You seem to operate a balanced PF so I guess it's not as big a hit for you as it has been for some. I have no idea where Crypto will go next or where the bottom maybe? Some people have made million out of Crypto over the years but I have never been in this space.

Sorry if this is a little off topic but until CASP give us something to get our teeth into it may be quiet again here.

All IMHO GLA

JK, I subscribe to your views on the markets and I'd rather be holding BARC than something like Bitcoin after yesterdays drubbing.

Count me in. I suspect that there may be quite a lot of orders in at around that price so it should be well supported?

I know that feeling PV. If I had a penny for every time I said I wasn't going to buy any more CASP I'd have 49p....... or 10 more shares!

KK, Better invested here than Crypto. We have had this discussion before but with equities down a couple of percent Bitcoin was down 16% at one point yesterday and is down again this morning. Buying CASP is not exactly gold ingots under the bed but as the fundamentals improve its a far safer place for your money than some. A few weeks ago the financial pundits were all plugging Crypto as a hedge against inflation!!! Perhaps they should be plugging equities? I'm not expecting the 21 financials to be that strong. The POO early in the year was still weak and our production didn't start to ramp up until quite late in the year. What we have now is on another plane but 6 month old numbers will dictate sentiment here for a month or so after release. With so many other equities suffering from 'market first' slippage Casper is one of those stocks that can out perform.

All IMHO GLA

Awwww. I'll miss him! His groundless rants with absolutely no rationale or basis in fact were quite endearing!
GLA

Thanks CC, As usual your post is well researched and factual. Mike's posts reminded me of the narrative that was pushed our way when the boat was acquired. This was back in autumn 2020. How time flies. I'm guilty of judging business decisions on their performance and, for me at least, the boat is a throw back to Jam tomorrow promises.

I totally buy in to either JV initiatives or straight forward charter but, thus far, it's all very flat. The boat seems to have two modes. Sat in the harbour costing money or out on charter to cover costs. Maybe the move away from Russian oil will increase the investment case for kaz oil but the present logistics favour Russian pipelines and while we all hope KEBCO will transform our future it's yet to be proven?

I want to see CASP drilling and producing oil from land based wells because this is the core business. Where would we be now if we had concentrated more resources on development of shallow wells for the last 5 years? Hypothetical I know but 10-20k BOPD doesn't sound outlandish. I'm invested here because I believe this business has massive potential. One of the weaknesses however has been the temptation to chase the end of the rainbow and come up short. If you look up insanity in the dictionary there's a picture of Clive telling us the next deep well is going to be a gusher.

The success stories here over recent months have been the shallow well developments while the boat and the deeps continue to come up short. I want CASP to back their winners. When we are producing 20K BOPD from the shallow fields I would be supportive of looking at other opportunities.

All very much IMHO of course GLA

Id like to see them sell the boat for sure. The trouble is it's a white elephant. A really nice piece of equipment that is stuck in the Caspian Sea were it is the only real equipment of it's kind. Not because it's got some sort of monopoly but because there is very little demand for it at the moment.

I'm not sure what the purpose of the one and only charter the boat has been used for but even then it only really washed it's face on costs for that year. I'm fed up hearing that they are in negotiation on a charter only for it to all go quiet again. For me the boat is a distraction, a hole in the water that the company has to keep tipping money into. They bought it to bail somebody out on a flawed investment IMO.

I totally buy into the $300M cost to build the boat again but nobody is going to do that so it's irrelevant. If there is equipment on board that can be used for a land based operation then they should consider stripping it out and selling the boat to someone who can re purpose it.

CASP are here to drill wells and produce and sell oil not get into boat hire.

All IMHO of course GLA

Thought I'd stumbled onto another board as there has been tumble weed blowing across this board over recent weeks and now it's like Tesco when the beans are on offer! Good to see some fresh interest and better volumes. Let's not get too excited though, this is CASP after all. That said we are clearly on a roll and long may it continue. 2021 results are much anticipated so let's hope they don't disappoint and as for the divi? Very welcome but my punt would be 0.1p or so. That's not bad for a first divi and leaves room for a progressive divi strategy going forward. It also leaves room to keep developing the shallow's which i'll take over the divi any day. It was feeling really good here before the geopolitical tensions kicked us in the nuts. There is more there to play out but for the moment there is much to be positive about.

All IMHO GLA

Yep. Thnx RE. Takes the new company to 100,000 BOPD and more importantly reduces the combined gearing which should increase the options for investment? I guess it will also mean that the percentage of hedged production of the new entity has been reduced. The 50M cost synergies wont hurt either. Not letting the grass grow at the moment. All IMHO GLA.

Just added another 100k shares. Small beer but I must be feeling more confident? KEBCO was the deciding factor. Let's hope this initiative comes good in terms of price delta.

GLA

I think you will drive yourself mad trying to work this out. If you take today's market capitalisation and reduce the number of shares in circulation by about 600M and recalculate the capital/share then you would have a theoretical value for the buy back I guess? Yes, it favours long term holders over those that hoover up divi's but that's all part of the strategy to attract investors to stay long. The buy back takes place over 6 months so anything can, and probably will happen in that time so the eventual impact on the SP is not something I'd want to predict with any degree of accuracy. I don't think the buy back is propping up the price in any great way. Strong results, an inviting P/E and increasing interest rates are probably a bigger impact. That said the company buying £50m worth of shares each week cant hurt!

All IMHO of course. GLA

It's good that they have chosen to spell this out and clarify he situation. Some oilers have already done this so pleased to see this communication. looks like the pain the Kazakh economy is taking on tax revenues is driving a positive initiative to correct the anomaly of selling high quality Kazakh oil at pariah prices? I agree the accident of geography comment. The best news will come in the form of further announcements and the closing of the gap to Brent. Let's face it the biggest risk here over recent weeks has been that the Urals delta would widen? 802? We have to drill it but its a low probability project so not getting too excited. Be amazing if it does deliver. All in all a good morning!

All IMHO GLA

The 142 result gave us a real boost and I think most people expected the momentum to carry on pushing this up. Unfortunately for CASP the EU decided to commit to moving away from Russian oil. At face value the rise in the POO this news created was good for CASP but they sell their oil at Urals prices which trade well below Brent as a result of sanctions. The risk is that the Urals price will collapse even further on this news is very real and is why I think we have retraced. Even if the Urals price goes south there are other distribution routes for Kaz oil which may become more viable than the Russian pipelines CASP use at the moment. This stock SP is very business and geopolitical news driven. The good news is CASP are survivors and they will get through this as they always do.

All IMHO GLA

Shal, BARC put their buy back on hold following the overselling c*ck up and the SP took a dive. The recent gain is probably more to do with them filing revised 2021 accounts and announcing that the buy back would commence as it is about the stock they are buying. That said they intend to complete the buy back by Sept 30th so they are presently spending about £50M per week on their own stock which isn't going to hurt.

I guess if any of us knew for sure then we'd be picking out a pacific island to buy? Great Q1 results, the buy back and a P/E still in the 4's gives us scope for continued upside. Nothing goes vertical but if you hold stock then the buy back is a part of your return and it will continue until 30th Sept. There are people invested here who can bank profit at 170 and good luck to them but the SP is a long way from overheating despite the recent recovery.

All IMHO GLA.