Member Info for pauldrayton

I can see a 50k trade but not a 25k.

Was that you causing the Price Monitoring Extensions then?!

I’m getting a quote to buy at 100p and sell at 97.5p currently.

Depends how many you’re after I guess!

Whilst the adverts speak in the future tense about potential deals....

“Longboat is well positioned to pursue opportunities, and we are currently engaged in ongoing discussions with various counterparties on a bilateral basis and intends to progress these opportunities as quickly as possible”

&

“The Directors have strong industry relationships that are expected to provide a pipeline of opportunities for Longboat Energy. The management team are able to utilize their deep industry network to identify opportunities for bilateral transactions. The Directors believe that their direct access to opportunities will provide them with the ability to execute future acquisitions at attractive valuations”

...it’s hard to shake off the idea that there is more to this and they must be very confident of securing a deal (or deals) soon.

I take Mozza’s point about due diligence but surely they would have been using contractors to carry out due diligence on prospective deals over the past 16 months, and haven’t waited until now to recruit 3 full time permanent members of staff to analyse potential deals.

You might also question why they’re recruiting for these positions when they mentioned absorbing personnel as part of a deal, but maybe now they know who they will & won’t need? After all, how many people would accept a role helping a fledgling company secure assets when their position could become redundant as soon as a deal is done?

I’m trying not to look at this through rose-tinted glasses as a shareholder and I realise that I could be wrong but after the Results RNS I had a hunch that a deal would be announced in April. The recent strengthening in the share price and some high volume days might also point towards something happening behind the scenes. Now they’re recruiting for these 3 roles which will add a fair bit to their cash burn, it paints a picture for me. Time will tell of course, and it’s purely trying to piece together snippets of information, but I sense that there is a bit more to this than just a strengthening of the team.

All senior roles. 3 new full time senior positions advertised at the same time suggests there might be some progress behind the scenes (you’d hope).

Senior Geologist:

Geological evaluation of all type of assets
Identify & mature opportunities and bring forward robust technical recommendations
Develop geological models based on well data and seismic
Conduct detailed mapping on 3D or 2D seismic data and work closely with Geophysicists to find the hydrocarbon potential based on technical and business experience
Apply specialist knowledge to discussions with partners to influence work programs and key decisions
Provide input to other project teams and individuals with exploration, development and production to ensure that specialist skills and experience are appropriately shared and leveraged across the organisation
Initiate and direct major geological studies
Evaluate farm-in opportunities and make recommendations to management on participation

Senior Geophysicist:

Identify & mature opportunities and bring forward robust technical recommendations
Interpretation mapping of seismic and other geophysical data
Integration of data
Secure quality contributions to application documents
Apply specialist knowledge to discussions with partners to influence work programs and key decisions
Provide input to other project teams and individuals with exploration, development and production to ensure that specialist skills and experience are appropriately shared and leveraged across the organisation
Prospect generation and risk assessment
Acreage evaluations for licensing rounds, license renewal, new venture opportunities
Recommend and monitor proposals for seismic surveys and technical studies, including seismic processing

Senior Reservoir Engineer:

Provide reservoir engineering evaluations in all type of assets
Provide support to exploration with regards to reservoir engineering input to prospect evaluations and early discovery studies
Provide technical reservoir engineering analysis, including dynamic reservoir simulation for field developments and production
Provide reservoir management input to plans and activities
Establish production prognosis for the economical evaluation of the drilling projects
Represent Longboat Energy in technical license meetings and data rooms
Review reservoir performance
QA and update reservoir models
Identify & evaluate value chain opportunities
Forecasting

Thanks WS. All very interesting.

Thanks Mogger, fair points.

It might be me being too straightforward, but I would have thought If the award was going to be delayed for that reason then they would need to inform both parties (which they haven’t). In fact they are talking about making considerable progress and bringing it to a conclusion.

Mozza you make some fair points there, but they mentioned being in advanced talks on various fronts this time last year - surely they wouldn’t have even got that far without doing the due diligence.

They said recently that they are already involved in various processes which are making good progress - I’m not convinced they could ask the vendor to wait a month whilst they recruit a reservoir engineer to give the deal a once over.

If the reason for recruiting at this stage is to analyse their first prospective deal then I agree with you - it’s not great news. If it’s to assist with future deals and assets that they believe they’ve already secured then it’s good news.

All conjecture from me but we will just have to wait and see! You don’t need to prove yourself to anybody though - nobody here does. It’s much better to have a balanced approach than an over bullish jam tomorrow type forum.

Haha I don’t think Mozza is trying to be negative. He makes a fair point.

What I would say is that a Senior Reservoir Engineer with the experience they are asking for is not a cheap addition and will add to the cash burn. I’m not convinced they would be doing that unless they were very confident of a deal.

It’s difficult to tell from Linkedin whether the other appointments that Mozza (correctly) mentions were full time appointments or just employed on a part-time/consultancy basis. I suspect maybe the latter - I haven’t checked the Results to see what the additional staff costs were last year though:

I’m taking it as a positive because I think they must believe they’re close to securing a deal, but it might be just hope on my part!

Well spotted. Deadline 21st April. You’d think they must be pretty confident of securing a deal if they’re hiring more full time members of staff, especially a Senior Reservoir Engineer who won’t come cheap.

True. A few sells filtering through this morning so there might be some liquidity to buy now.

Update to analysts at 11.30am. Doubt there will be anything new for now though.

It’s a tough one to trade with the spread and illiquidity but I know what you mean. Maybe some are gambling on a deal before the 18 month mark hits in May, particularly with the increase in M&A.

The larger trades and volume over the previous two days were encouraging but like you I’m not reading too much into anything at the moment because we’ve been through it all before only for it to be a false dawn.

Yes it was interesting day. On the face of it there appeared to be an equal number of buys & sells yet the price moved upwards - not complaining mind!

Maybe a background order in play as someone alluded to earlier?

I think/hope April will bring news.

Also:

BayWa r.e. renewable energy GmbH and BayWa r.e. Asset Holding GmbH v. Kingdom of Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/15/16)

Thanks Mogger,

What about this one:

Silver Ridge Power BV v. Italian Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/15/37)

Mogger - other ICSID cases have concluded since December so why would this one in particular be delayed because of that? And if that was causing delays wouldn’t the tribunal inform the parties?

You might have a bit more luck now a couple of sells have gone through.

That’s unlike you Godders.

“Interesting that Suncor Norway's office is right next door to Longboat's! (Løkkeveien, Stavanger)”.

It’s the same building - they are linked. Would make incorporating the staff relatively straightforward!