Member Info for Paul750pd

I've just got an email from Moram Capital, who have done a deep dive into Kistos again. I'm not subsribed, so I don't know what they have written, but this is part of the message in the email:

''Kistos is a small-cap energy company that long-time MORAM readers will know well. We were very active in the name between 2021 and 2023, when the company combined a strong capital allocation track record, exposure to discounted European gas assets and a market environment shaped by energy security, gas scarcity and asset divestments. That thesis was ultimately damaged by the European windfall-tax cycle, which in our view severely undermined the case for investing in upstream energy assets in Europe.

For those who were not following us at the time, Kistos was founded by Andrew Austin and much of the former RockRose team shortly after the sale of RockRose Energy to Viaro in 2020. RockRose had been one of the more unusual success stories in the London-listed energy space, delivering a 42x return to shareholders between 2016 and 2020 through counter-cyclical acquisitions of mature and non-core assets in the UK and wider North Sea. Kistos was launched as a second attempt to apply a similar model.

The first version of Kistos was built around European gas, mainly through Tulip Oil in the Netherlands and the Greater Laggan Area in the UK. That phase worked very well initially, but it also exposed the limits of the model when commodity prices normalised and governments changed the economics of upstream cash flows.

The second version of Kistos is an attempt to move beyond that model. The company is trying to rebuild the portfolio outside the European fiscal and regulatory framework where windfall taxes have reduced the incentive to invest in oil and gas production, weakening Europe’s energy security. Norway was the first step in that repositioning. Through the Mime acquisition, Kistos gained exposure to Balder/Ringhorne. A brownfield asset base, but it is less mature than the UK and Dutch gas assets. Oman was the second step, with the acquisition signed in December. The interests in Blocks 3 & 4 and Block 9 add immediate oil-weighted production, meaningful 2P reserves and close to half of Kistos’ pro forma production base. It also gives the company its first Middle East platform, but in a geography that does not require export flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

That is, many things have changed over these last three years, and we believe that the closing (announced this week) of the acquisition of Blocks 3 and 4 in Oman is the perfect catalyst to publish a deep analysis of this company, which we had been following closely again for several months.

Today is not just any analysis. Today we take another in-depth look at the situation of a company to which we devoted hundreds of hours in 2021 and 2022, aiming to explain its current reality and to determine the scale of the potential opportunity following its re-rating over the past 18 months''.

As someone who is mostly a spectator on this forum, Genghis15's post has reminded me that it's probably time for one of the knowledgeable and good faith posters to stick on the kettle, brew a large cup of coffee, and write a well balanced and detailed analysis of Kistos again. Flippant posts with little nuance nor context are not enlightening, and are beneficial only insofar as they're self serving in some kind of way to the poster writing them.

Just noticed that. Very interesting...

I finally got out of this a couple of weeks ago. Psychologically, owning this share was worse than owning a share that got suddenly wiped out, as the potentially encouraging aspects of it tended to sometimes counterbalance the opaque and worrying aspects. This meant that some people like myself stayed in it too long, and endured a kind of slow torture. I'm no masochist, so such an experience was not enjoyable. I actually recommended this to my mum a few years back as well, as at the time I saw it as a reasonably safe dividend stock. A switch was made to other stocks such as Greatland Resources, which has helped ease the pain of holding this naughty doggy. Rusty must be one of the most pigheadded people on planet earth, leading shareholders' into oblivion.

I've started a position here, as I've been following John Rosier and this looks promising. The management's proven expertise sold me.

Mildly*

The lack of news is midly disappointing. Let's hope there is an update soon.

Rob needs to realise that a lot of people are in this due to Andrew Austin's proven expertise. An anonymous man posting on an online forum, and presumably acting in bad faith - is not going to unnerve anyone.

I can't complain too much about this stock, as I have done alright with it - good dividends in 2021/22, along with another couple this year. I also got in at a decent price too. But I cannot help but feel that this company will never realise its potential - there are simply too many complexities and unknowns around it. It is for that reason, I think I will sell it on Monday and top up my AEW UK Reit stock. To me, Gulf Keystone Petroleum is a bit like silver - there are always people who claim that it will take off like a rocket, but that day never seems to come. I'm happy enough to have made a few quid out of it.

I won't pretend to know the intricacies of this situation. But I do notice that Zacks has downgraded Diversified Energy from strong buy to hold.

I finally flushed this proverbial yesterday, having held since 2021. Good luck to anyone with the stomach to continue. It is possible that there could be a turnaround eventually, but I ceratinly don't think this is another Amazon. This joins the naughty list of my worst ever picks, along with IOG and Ocado.

What kind of rabbits can Andrew and the team pull out of the hat here? Andrew's main focus has always been the North Sea, so this current situation is uncharted waters (no pun intended). There are of course, other opportunities, but it's always easier said than done. Watching the share price drift to the IPO level is not much fun, but this company is far from over.

I'm not quite getting where you are coming from, wildtiger. Can you explain your rationale for investing in Kistos in the first place? I was under the assumption that many of us had originally invested in the company because of the expertise of Andrew Austin and his team, and not because of any kind of bet on gas prices, or any other single issue. It cannot be denied that the windfall tax and investment away from the gas only, low carbon strategy has had an impact. But if Austin and his team are still compos mentis, the original reason some of us invested remains.

I had thought that the considerable skin in the game the team had, along with the seemingly genuine emphasis on shareholder value, and past performance, was somewhat of an outlier, and still do. At this point it certainly doesn't look like we are going to have a repeat of RockRose. But I do wonder if some people have lost their nerve too easily. Only time will tell.

I caught a recent debate involving Aaron Bastani of Novara Media, and he said that Keir Starmer could make ''a right turn on a bunch of stuff, including migration and new oil and gas in the North Sea.'' Considering how similar both parties now are, it is plausible. But I would still go back to my earlier point regarding Andrew Austin, who I think is wasting his time complaining about the political landscape.

I understand Andrew's frustration - we are all frustrated. But surely it's better to just accept the fact the UK is screwed, and focus on alternatives? Why even waste time talking about it?

We can only hope that patience is the key here. I've been holding since early 2021, and it has been quite the rollercoaster ride.