Member Info for OofyProsser

What benefit would a further consolidation offer? This company’s market capitalisation is below £1.5mm. This is the value of the company to shareholders. Claims of an asset value of $200mm. is misleading bs. If the company’s asset value were just 5% of this , they’d be able to sell assets and clear their debts in full. They’re not doing this because they can’t. There’s no market for their assets. The tiny amount of new capital they could raise through a consolidation and placing would get nowhere near meeting their debt obligations. Their total debt, to Alpha and to Mercuria combined, appears to be $9.7mm.

If there is a “Swiss investor” willing to bale them out, he’s a very unusual sort of Swiss. He appears to be their only hope, though.

It seems to me this is close to insolvent. Where are they going to get money sufficient to keep operating, never mind the huge debt? Directors can be personally liable for debts built up if they are aware that there is little or no reasonable prospect of the company being able to pay its creditors.

There are no diamonds. Capitalised at less than £1.5mm., where are Vast going to get enough money to stay in business?

The diamonds would have to put in an appearance first. They are currently AWOL.

There hasn’t been any mention of the additional overdue debt owed to Mercuria, of $3.9mm, since the April update, has there? Or have I missed something? The “Swiss investor” with the deep pockets appears to have very short arms. Vast appears to be quite unable to meet its commitments.

How can Vast raise the $5.8mm which is the sum required to meet the guarantee, when Vast's own market cap is a fraction of this sum? Vast has acknowledged in Mr. Prelea’s recent interview that they have an obligation to cover the $5.8mm at some stage. I wonder what will happen if their guarantor can’t make the payment?

Re Mr. Prelea!s tenacity, it’s hard to imagine suitors for his expertise and track record queuing round the block. His investment in this is now worth 1-2 cents on his invested $. Still he hasn’t got a loss until he sells them, has he? Average down. Buy on the dips.

He claims a NAV of $200mm on his two principal assets. If this is the case, why does he not sell all or part of one of them and resolve all his problems at a stroke? I can tell you why he doesn’t. It doesn’t take a Warren Buffet to work it out, does it?

He still claims the Zimbabwe diamonds are there but that he can’t talk about them! Can anyone else think of a reason why secrecy over many years is so important from the Zimbabwe government’s point of view? I can.

The $5.8mm loan that is to be repaid this time next week is owed by an outside guarantor and it is Vast’s moral obligation to cover it, not a contractual one, according to him. He left no uncertainty that Vast feels obliged to pay it but he left no clue as to how it’s to be done, other than “the Swiss investor”. Still, we should know more next week. There’s no doubt he’s working hard - he looked as though he would benefit from a couple of days in the spa at Victoria Falls.

Mr. Zielicki also said that Angus was now producing 2mmscfd, if memory serves. If there is a range of 80-90p for new hedges, what is dynamic about their pricing? And we have no details of the offtake agreement with Trafigura.

Re “hedge of gas price gone in Juge 2025”.

The interim statement included the following:

“ The existing hedge contract was replaced with a gas offtake, with embedded price protection.”

In other words, one hedge programme has been replaced with another, details of which have been withheld.

HITS: that 6-month chart appears to me to be the chart for last Friday. That’s why I suspect it’s the work of the non-executive Chairman of this highly experienced management team.

Surely an extremely misleading and inaccurate share price chart in the new website? Is this the work of the Chairman?

Dear oh dear.

There’s a deadline coming up in about five weeks, isn’t there? Even if Gucci Grace didn’t have it away on her toes with the diamonds ten years or more ago, Vast have very little time left to organise another trip down to the Reserve Bank with the deputy sheriff to secure them if they’re to repay those loans on time.

Crocqman: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The share price is what matters and this has done little but go down month after month, year after year. You are welcome to your insistence on an optimistic interpretation of Angus’s prospects. I’m not suddenly going to change my opinion, which has been consistently correct. Your best hope is a pump and dump, which I don’t rule out, in view of their need for more cash to finance the new compressor, new wells etc. . Otherwise, it looks like a case of onward and downward. You’ll be sitting it out, will you? You haven’t got a loss until you sell it. Or you could average down. At these prices, it would be rude not to.

I wonder whom they’ll get to do a revised CPR.

WG818: he’s a good deal more cerebral than his Chairman, what? He doesn’t discuss the prospective cost of the proposed new wells nor the justification for revising the CPR. He doesn’t mention the fact that Poundland is a severely depleted fuel that gets more depleted every day. Unlike the Chairman, he doesn’t seem to mention overseas exploration acquisitions. His emphasis on abandonment provisioning is a first for Angus, isn’t it? I wonder when they’ll start. It’s hard to imagine two Board members differing so much in tone and subject matter within a couple of days.

It beats me how shareholders in this can be anything but dismayed by the two public outings by Mr. Zielicki. Brother ‘Erbert should have taken a leaf out of the Earl of Lucan’s book and kept the non-executive Chairman well away from the interview circuit. He gives no evidence of understanding Angus’s fundamental financial dilemma. If he had said “we are dependent on much higher domestic gas prices for our financial survival” or if he and his fellow Board members had filled their boots with Angus shares, one would have had some respect for him.

It’s all very well these optimists criticising one’s posting history but look at what’s happened in these companies. I’ve commented on Angus, UKOG, AAOG, Challenger Resources and Vast. A short position in any or all these would have proven highly lucrative. You shills should mark, learn and inwardly digest. .

Ocelot: yes, wooden. He was pretty wooden himself. Those wooden gas pipes must cost a fair bit to replace. Still, he’s worked in every country in the world except Nigeria so he should know. Given his age, he must have worked about two months on average in each country. He’s a quick worker, what?

What is Brother ‘Erbert doing, allowing this chap to give interviews?

When I said the other day that I couldn’t see Brother ‘Erbert allowing Mr. Zielicki out again without adult supervision, I didn’t mean Malcy!

What a preposterous interview. Acquisitions in N. America/N. Africa to triple oil production! Mergers with other minnows. A new £3-4mm compressor to enable them to increase production and squeeze more gas out! Lots more wells/sidetracks. More investment at Brockham etc. No wonder he wants the share price up. They can’t finance more than a fraction of the above from cash flow.

Malcy’s sartorial standard has hit a new low.

Yes, Ocelot. They’ve swindled scores of mugs by means of a successful p&d and diluted their % shareholdings into the bargain. And introduced yet another unicorn hunt to add to all the previous ones. That’s what you consider good management, is it? What do you think of the water companies’ managements, I wonder. Real experts at feathering their own nests at the expense of customers, shareholders and the environment. Their shares should be summarily suspended while the costs of fixing their leaks and cleaning up devastated rivers are established and reserved for. Shareholders would be left with nothing, and quite right too.

Mr. Prelea’s best option is to meet Mr Mnangagwa and offer him 10% of Vast in return for the latter’s help in getting a bag of diamonds. Mr. Mnangagwa would see a large profit on his shares without having to get the diamonds looked at and Vast could quickly get away an enormous placing at a much higher price.

Quite right, again, HITS. There’s no technical reason why Angus directors shouldn’t buy shares in it. If there’s an offer under consideration, it should be RNS’d, not touted as the reason for a close period. I doubt that Brother ‘Erbert will allow Mr. Zielicki out again without adult supervision.

Yes, HITS. But I think you can sum up Trafigura’s position as a shrewd stripping of all the likely earnings from Poundland under the terms of their loan agreement, including hedges, offtake agreement, royalty and interest/repayment terms. There will be nothing left for shareholders unless there’s a massive rise in the UK price of gas. I think this is the whole point. The Angus management will get their salaries etc., while the field continues to deplete. Trafigura will have done their work on the crossover date when production would no longer pay the debt terms. After that, there will be nothing left for shareholders but de-commissioning costs. . Brockham etc. are a smoke screen. No doubt mug punters will be persuaded to back future capital raises to finance new sidetracks(!) and there will be more pump and dumps. It’s hard to see any real value in this for shareholders, though.