The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
smithfields, the tax issue doesn't relate to SOU's acquisition of the Schlumberger share. It concerns 1) the transfer of the Tendara concession between two SOU subsidiary's, and 2) Schlumberger's conversion of a synthetic interest in the concession to a "real" one. Item 2) has since been dropped by the tax authority.
GuntherGobdaw: "What posts? Perhaps you have me mixed up with someone else. All my posts simply show how stupid you are."
Obfuscation and insults are the last resort of someone who has lost an argument.
Of course they won't pursue a spurious tax claim. Their contention is that it ISN'T spurious. If they are right, SOU owes the money. If not, then not. Simples.
Going on what SOU have reported by RNS, the claim DOES seem entirely spurious. A reassignment or subdivision of an exploration license is not a sale. It is the license issuer who does the reassignment, not either of the parties (the original or new licensee). Or, at least, that's how it works in other countries.
GuntherGobdaw: "Nobody really gives a rats about volatility when you have an annualised return of 230%, 10x higher than the Nasdaq 100."
So all your posts about Bitcoin being viable as money was just blather, exactly as I expected. It's not a stable medium of exchange because that's the last thing all you "shrewd investor" greedy fanboys want. Gotcha.
"10x from here easy in the next few years followed by a further 10x within 10 years."
So you think it's going to go to multiple millions of USD per coin? Utterly delusional. We've had a yield curve inversion on the US bond market recently, which probably signals a recession in the next 18 months and a significant stock market drawdown. Bitcoin will get slaughtered along with everything else, particularly when the margin calls arrive from the trillions in new money that have gone into options trading in the past year. You heard it here first.
GuntherGoobdaw: "History will no doubt prove how wrong you are"
History Lesson, from 2013:
"the biggest complaint of detractors is concern over it’s price volatility; while this is difficult to debate, as the market matures and grows it will become less influenced by money entering and exiting the system".
Nine years later ... BTC still having 30% intraday falls.
GuntherGobdaw: "One of the best reasons why Bitcoin is a better inflation hedge is due to its fixed supply of 21 million coins, nearly 19 million of which have already been mined. An ironclad fixed supply means that new coins can't enter circulation, so there's no risk of inflation."
Cryptomaniacs repeat this sort of nonsense as dogma. Real world currencies can suffer from imported inflation, and that can result from not just commodity price increases but by exchange rate fluctuations. Actual purchase transactions with Bitcoin achieved a paltry few hundred thousand per day last year -- an utterly negligible number compared to real world currencies.
Therefore, Bitcoin's sole utility is as a gambler's plaything -- hoping that someone else will pay more than you did for your Bitcoin in a real world currency. And since that exchange rate is the sole measure of value then, yes, of course Bitcoin can suffer inflation as is obvious from its exchange rate volatility.
"One Bitcoin always has and always will equal one Bitcoin" -- I've never heard such a moronic statement from someone claiming to be a "shrewd investor". Bitcoin, unlike gold, has absolutely zero intrinsic value. Zippo. Nada. Even if you (wrongly) believed it had the attributes of money, the fact of the matter is that it is not USED as money beyond a pitiful few transactions. It's sole use is as a speculative investment.
Right, that's the end of this "free education for trolls" service.
GuntherGobdaw, are you too lazy to Google "bitcoin is not money", or just immune to contrary opinion? You will find a lot more diverse sites than that crypto trading platform site that you dug up your nine-year-old article on.
"In time you will realise that Bitcoin isn't volatile. One Bitcoin always has and always will equal one Bitcoin."
Same goes for the Argentine peso and the Zimbabwean dollar. Maybe that sort of nonsense goes down well with the "shrewd investors" you hang out with?
JODO, I don't consider it remotely selfish to want Barryroe to be developed. I consider it sane and necessary. I don't believe Ryan is intentionally out to wreck the economy either, but I *do* believe that's what his actions will achieve.
Back in the days when Peak Oil Theory was a thing, the Greens were delighted because it meant people would have to abandon their cars for bikes. I've no doubt Ryan is as horrified as the next man by war in Ukraine, but I've no doubt he sees the withdrawal of 5 mmbpd of Russian oil from global markets as a blessing in disguise. He clearly has no concept of the continuing dependence of the global economy on fossil fuels and the difficulty of transition.
I support reductions in carbon emissions. I don't support the madcap effort to achieve it by intermittent renewables because I firmly believe they are incapable of powering the world economy. I also believe the focus on renewables is taking our eye off viable alternatives. It's also going to cost an arm and a leg which is going to seriously damage economies.
And finally, unlike Green doomsters who preach that we are heading for climate change Armageddon, I've actually read the IPCC materials and nothing like that is forecast. Climate change is not an existential threat but has a predictable economic impact which should be weighed against the costs of any mitigation strategy.
GuntherGobdaw, your article is from the year when Bitcoin rose from $13 to over $1200 -- an insane level of volatility. Not to worry, the article says, "the biggest complaint of detractors is concern over it’s price volatility; while this is difficult to debate, as the market matures and grows it will become less influenced by money entering and exiting the system". Quick fact check on that: the value of Bitcoin in circulation has grown from $100m then to a TRILLION DOLLARS now. Oh wait, that was last November. It's fallen by a third since then. Less volatile? I don't think so. A senile donkey can see that cryptomania is driven by clueless punters looking to get rich quick. People like you are the equivalent of the infamous shoeshine boy giving investment tips in '29.
Hilarious, GuntherGobdaw. Bitcoin is clearly a fad which has few if any of the attributes of money. Its run-up since late 2020 is b@tshyt insane and part of the same bubble that has driven options trading, meme stocks and all the rest of the craziness that loose monetary policy has produced. It's an utterly useless concept with no intrinsic value (as distinct from the blockchain itself, but that can be reproduced by any programmer). For something that can lose two third of its value in a month *without* particularly adverse market conditions, I can only imagine the carnage when there's a general market decline. But you think crypto is going to continue to ride the wave in a "broken" economy? LOL. I've no doubt you will reap the returns you deserve ;-)
GuntherGobdaw, fortunately my "shirt" is a lot bigger than my investment here. As I told you, I've been interested in energy issues for more than twenty years. Anything I post here is of course connected with my interest in Barryroe (duh!), but I post on energy issues in a lot of other places too. Unlike you, I don't post about irrelevancies like your "shrewd Bitcoin investments" (LOL), which are neither "green" nor anything to do with the purpose of this BB. Perhaps try to be less of an angry little troll, there's a good chap.
JODO, no, I don't consider that relevant. (It's not even true, but that's not relevant either). My objection is not to Chinese emissions, it is to the expensive and ineffective way that Ireland is trying to curb its own. The degree of harm being done by Irish emissions is vastly outweighed by the economic harm being done by its policies.
Good point about Schlumberger, Gassy, I had forgotten that. SOU got an additional 27.5% of the Tendrara concession in return for nothing up front, and 8-11% of net profits. I presume it also means Schlumberger doesn't have to come up with any of the Phase 2 costs which will be one of SOU's biggest hurdles. But yes, an accretive deal.
My point about the number of shares is simply that it was around 530m at the end of TE-7, 1100m when Parsons left, and over 1600m today -- a tripling of the number of shares on issue in four years (but only a 50% increase since Graham arrived). That's where the major dilution is -- I didn't mean to confuse it with the separate LNG issue. The problem with LNG is simply that it's a lot less profitable than pipeline exports. About a sixth of the horst gas will go as LNG, reducing profits by some amount.
I don't mean to do Graham down. If anything, it's more a recognition of how very nearly banjaxed the company was by the "high risk, high return" approach of the Parsons years. However, it's germane to point out that some of the original value is gone and won't be returning because of the dilution and the lower value of LNG. The collapse in share price has resulted in a lot of equity being given away cheaply. Nearly a third of the equity issued on Grahams watch was in return for just 3.5m of the outstanding bond (and there's 100m warrants outstanding from that too).
Which reminds me -- carrying that debt for the past however many years has been a disaster too. The bondholders may have had a few heart stopping moments about whether they'd get their money back but, boy are they getting a handsome return for it.
Again, good for Graham for managing to stay in the game with the hand he's been dealt. But he still has a ways to go to boost SOU's value significantly.
"I presume the 1060 GW Coal Burning Electricity Generators is only an estimate. The Chinese are commissioning one of these a week."
Last time I looked (pre Covid) the Chinese were adding more carbon emissions *just from coal every month* than Ireland had saved in 16 years. Ryan now wants us to spend €125 billion to eliminate 0.05% of global emissions by 2030 while China continues to add. Even at that, we'll probably fail since the degree of wind penetration Ryan envisages is unsupportable. But he's prepared to wreck the economy in the attempt. Somebody needs to stop this lunatic, but I don't see how it's going to happen. While we are staring an immediate energy and cost-of-living crisis in the face he is still getting away with blathering about wind and green hydrogen -- a prospect that is so far in the future it might as well be never.
Walking on water clearly ain't what it used to be. The SP is lower than it was when Parsons, Traynor and Mitchener left. Graham may have saved SOU from the abyss but so far he has not added any value. What he *has* added is half a billion shares to the register. That's on top of the half billion that were added since SOU's last success with TE-7.
SOU's potential asset value has been diluted by two thirds since TE-7. It has been further diluted by the decision to do micro LNG which, while necessary to keep the show on the road, is of much less value than pipeline exports. And five years on from the decision to monetise SOU's assets we are a long way off doing that. The cost of the pipeline is eight times SOU's current market cap. I would say there is no possibility of a cheap loan just falling into SOU's lap. So the impact of Phase 2, if and when it happens, still remains to be seen.
You may call this "a great chance for success". I would call it a "wait and see" situation, and so far the market agrees.
Wind supplied 33% of electricity in March, down from 53% in February:
https://windenergyireland.com/latest-news/6434-wind-supplies-33-of-power-in-march-as-gas-pushes-prices-to-record-high
With lacklustre news of generation -- due to lack of lethal storms compared to February, I guess -- the focus is on other issues. Wind Energy Ireland (the mouthpiece for Big Wind) points out that gas prices are too high and planning permissions for new wind are too slow. Gotta keep those subsidies flowing!
... says the fat kid who doesn't want to play ball but hangs around moanin'.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/today-with-claire-byrne/programmes/2022/0406/1290754-today-with-claire-byrne-wednesday-6-april-2022/
McWilliams starts at 1:05:00
The FF point is a valid one: "As our energy minister, [Ryan] must do what is in Ireland’s best interest. That is his sole responsibility." Moreover, when it comes to Barryroe, it's not even a policy matter that he has discretion over. Existing hydrocarbon licenses are valid. As long as PVR's application is valid they are entitled to a lease undertaking. They fact that DCCAE will neither issue it nor will Ryan respond to questions about it is scandalous.