Proposed Directors of Tirupati Graphite explain why they have requisitioned an GM. Watch the video here.
Never ceases to amaze me how twisted the panties get round here when someone merely dares to repeat the valuation given by SOU's own official broker. Zero for Phase 1, 8p for Phase 2 (assuming no onerous strings attached to funding), additional exploration potential.
Pity Sleepy Ryan didn't get his head down at school and get an education and a proper job. Maybe the country wouldn't be getting screwed by a failed bicycle salesman on a power trip. (Or is that a power *nap*. Whatever.)
"Really? Just because you keep saying this, that does not make it true. You probably mean to say it offsets all possible liabilities".
Not being cheeky but that is what "net" means.
"and whilst we are at it, let’s ignore booked reserves and resources."
Yes, booked reserves are an asset but not one that is being assigned much value until SOU shows how it is going to get them out of the ground, and at what cost.
That's my interpretation of why the share price has been sitting at roughly the same level for the past two years. I'm open to other explanations from all the people who upvoted your comment and clearly take umbridge at mine. However, they'll also have to explain why SOU's official broker also values Phase 1 at zero.
Manyana: "I don't know about you but it hasn't been too windy lately."
I have actually never seen it as low as today. Our 4.5 GW of nameplate wind capacity was producing less than 45 MW this morning -- 0.1% of of capacity! And it was the same all day, while system demand was above 5 GW:
https://i.imgur.com/G1xGjyo.png
It's been a pretty bad week too. As usual when we get a big lazy high pressure parked over us, generation falls off a cliff:
https://i.imgur.com/GRcItot.png
Can you imagine what it would be like with the 30 GW that Ryan wants to build after 2030? Electricity would be worth essentially nothing at times of peak generation, making it impossible for backup generators to compete. And when the wind dies for two weeks (or two months as it did last year) ... well, 30 x 0 = 0.
Malcy's right that Sound has transformed from explorer to development company. By the time first gas flows, that transformation will have taken six years. What has always seemed obvious to me is that the transformation marks the end of the speculative valuations of the past, and the start of more realistic ones. Anyone who imagines the share price just randomly taking off one morning has missed the point. A developer is valued on their future cash flows, not on dreams of hitting some unknown jackpot. While Graham has indeed turned the company around against some pretty stiff headwinds, most of what is happening now is already built into the valuation. We are now on a well-signposted path, not a series of make-or-break drills.
Malcy says SOU deserves a rerating, but for what? As a reward for a job well done? That's not what investors (savvy ones, at least) pay for. The net cash flows from Phase 1 LNG will be zero, and right now that's what SOU is worth. Phase 2 will be a different story, but it's going to be some considerable time before we know where the large amount of money for that is coming from and what strings will be attached to it. I don't see anyone piling into this share until there's a lot more clarity.
The US is begging oil producers to increase output. Actually, they started doing it last November during the run up in oil and gas prices. Back then they were trying to pressure the Saudis and Russia to increase output. Ironically it was at the COP26 summit that energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said in an interview: "The message is we need to increase supply at this moment so that people will not be hurt during the winter months". Biden at the same time was criticising OPEC+: "The idea that Russia and Saudi Arabia and other major producers are not going to pump more oil so people can have gasoline to get to and from work, for example, is not right". Oil was a mere $80 -- that already seems like the good old days.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/granholm-opec-message-increase-oil-supply-so-people-dont-get-hurt.html
Now they're at it again. Granholm says: "We are in an emergency, and we have to responsibly increase short-term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and minimize harm to American families". To oil executives she said: "I hope your investors are saying these words to you as well: In this moment of crisis, we need more supply ... right now, we need oil and gas production to rise to meet current demand".
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/us-energy-secretary-granholm-calls-on-oil-and-gas-companies-to-raise-output.html
The hypocrisy is nauseating, of course. CNBC says: "In her appeal to an industry that has felt alienated by the administration, Granholm said the Department of Energy and the Biden administration broadly are ready to work with producers."
But I will take hypocrisy any day over the frankly scary attitude of Ryan, who is staring an energy apocalypse in the face and still yakking on about green hydrogen that might come on stream ten years from now (*IF* he puts a bolt up the backside of his planners). The Biden admin at least has the good sense to recognise a crisis coming down the tracks when they see it. Ryan is tinkling the bell on his pushbike and expecting the train to get out of his way.
Ryan won't change his mind, but he might conceivably get overridden. The pain for consumers is going to get very real starting next month. A 200 quid rebate on the leccie and a temporary reduction in fuel duties is not going to soften the blow very much. Paschal Donohoe is quoted in the Irish Times and Examiner last week saying "all energy costs cannot be covered by the State" and there are "no plans for further action on energy prices". For now he is backing Ryan's blather about accelerating the transition to renewables. However, everyone already knew that was years away and came with its own eye-watering costs. The near term price shocks are on top of all of that and could focus a lot of minds very quickly. No "acceleration" can avert that, especially when Ryan's planning bureaucracy is already seen to be an albatross even for wind suppliers.
IOOA has tweeted the full Indo article:
https://twitter.com/OffshoreIreland/status/1506321306576424966
Ryan really is a mealy mouthed twat. Says we can't be nimbys about wind farms up and down the Irish Sea. But apparently we *can* be nimbys about other people's hydrocarbons which we will continue to import with gay abandon. He's also a condescending twat -- says he wants to win the energy argument by "patiently explaining energy economics". So when's he going to lay it out? All we've seen so far is an unworkable plan to spend 125 billion of taxpayer's money on an insecure energy system, to save 0.05% of global emissions by 2030. Delusional!
"It's a 100-to-one mad bet, costing a fortune in the most expensive, harsh environment for oil and gas exploration you can find."
What Sleepy's eco-Marxist rant ignores is that the bet is taken by private money. Unlike his green utopia, the taxpayer doesn't have to foot the bill. He also doesn't seem to understand the difference between wildcat exploring and developing a known find. But none of that matters because he holds all the cards in this bet. I've been reading over the rules governing petroleum authorisations and I can't find anything that compels the minister to respond in a timely fashion, or in any timeframe at all. There's a casual statement that Ireland is a "supportive environment" for petroleum prospectors, but that was then and this is now, and there's nothing legally binding about it. I guess the idea was to make sure that exploration companies behaved properly, and the idea that the government itself would be a bad actor was never considered. Ryan can just stretch this out until Barryroe and PVR are dead, and my guess is that's exactly what he intends to do. He knows that if he grants the lease undertaking that he will be on a much stickier wicket trying to block a lease for actual development. So he dissembles and there seems little anyone can do. All he needs to say officially is that the lease undertaking is "under consideration". He's obviously of the opinion that any eventual decision is a matter of his own magisterial whim, uninfluenced by economic good sense.
It's painful to listen to Ryan. The swivel-eyed eco-zealot must be loving the opportunity afforded by this war to push his renewables message. I can't believe he was let away with that blather about the energy credit, which will still leave consumers facing about 90% of the increases in their energy bills on their own. We have an immediate energy emergency and he is talking about hydrogen from wind energy which is probably a decade away. He also completely ignores that Ireland is completely dependent on fossil fuels TODAY for far more than electricity needs. While wind provides a significant fraction of electricity, renewables (including hydro and biomass as well as wind) only account for 13% of our primary energy use. All the rest is fossil fuels. But Ryan would prefer to see the lights go out and transport grind to a halt than to see LNG imports or indigenous fossil fuel extraction. The guy genuinely frightens me. But he gets a free pass because most people don't understand the coming impact of his craziness. And now he also has a war to use as an excuse.
Pretty sure Ryan will do nothing about the lease until someone kicks his a$$. Or, at least, he will do nothing to improve the efficiency of the Petroleum Affairs Division at his department. A year to approve a lease undertaking is crazy. It took over a year to approve a seabed survey! Drilling an appraisal well will be another application, presumably another year. You couldn't make it up. In fairness, PVR hasn't been a bastion of efficiency itself, but no company can operate this way.
The previous almost identical seabed survey carried out by PVR got approved in less than seven months. That wasn't exactly fast, but it was barely half of the time taken for the subsequent survey. A year (so far) for the petroleum lease undertaking is even more problematic because the grant of a subsequent lease automatically kicks in a fixed period of time after the expiration of the exploration license (in this case, from July 2021). Presumably that's why the licensee has to apply for the lease undertaking three months before expiry, on the expectation that the undertaking will be granted within that three month period. So in this case Ryan is not just hampering PVR's efforts to move Barryroe forward, but he is eating into the time they then have to demonstrate commerciality in order to qualify for the petroleum lease.
Thanks Swizz. Seems to be only the DCCAE's website that isn't up to date:
https://www.dccae.ie/en-ie/natural-resources/topics/Oil-Gas-Exploration-Production/licensing/licences-and-maps/Pages/Six-Monthly-Report-to-the-Oireachtas.aspx
According to DCCAE's own website: "In accordance with Section 57 of the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act, the Minister is required to present to the Houses of the Oireachtas a six monthly report on Petroleum Exploration and Development in Ireland". They haven't posted a report since 2019.
Why won't Ryan respond to PVR in connection with its application for a petroleum lease undertaking? Is it just institutional incompetence or a deliberate foot-dragging exercise. Surely at some point it makes sense to get lawyers on the job?
I'm sure the UK will love that idea. "Please UK, send us more of your imported gas so we can keep our own until we need it".
It's pretty simple. The share price is not going anywhere until Phase 2 financing is sorted, and maybe not until quite some time after that. After all, it took nearly two years from the first Afriquia Gaz announcement to FID, and will be another two years to first revenue from Phase 1. There have been some sentiment-driven lurches in the SP but nothing lasting, nor should any be expected. We have a broker valuation for Phase 2 of 8p.
(I'd like to say it had something to do with me writing at length to two TDs last week, but I doubt that was it ;-)
Looks like our PR woman just earned her fee.
My memory was faulty. On checking ANGS RNS of Feb 4th, it says of SOUs potential offer "that such announcement must now be made by not later than 5.00pm on 11 March 2022, being the date being 28 days from the admission of the new Angus Energy plc shares to trading on AIM." So the drop dead moment is later today. RNS no later than Monday, then.
Had been wondering exactly that myself, but didn't like to bring it up. I think STD123 tends to pop up when there's a rally and announce his undying love for Graham. Ironically, according to himself he has now passed up not one, but *two* opportunities to get out at evens. Right now he's down over 50% (assuming he actually owns shares).
On another note, isn't next week the deadline for an ANGS offer? At least that uncertainty should be behind us a week from now.
I remember the "Drive 55" campaign in the US. Came in during the 70s oil embargo but still in force in the late 80s when I started driving there. Apparently only saved around 0.5% on fuel use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
Sleepy will have to come up with something better that that. Actually, here's a sobering article on how Greens are contributing to the decline of the West: https://quillette.com/2022/03/09/the-new-great-game/
Part of the problem for Barryroe is that it will not specifically improve Ireland's lot, but needs to be seen in the context of broader global energy supply. It's more about oil than gas, but even if the gas-rich OPL-1 option area was opened up again it would not reduce gas costs. Vermilion (who must be delighted with their Equinor share buyout) have been making a killing on Corrib in the last 12 months because the gas is sold at market rates, set by the marginal costs of pipeline imports from Moffat. What new gas WOULD do is improve security of supply. As for the oil in Barryroe, it would also be sold at market rates. Barryroe oil couldn't even be refined locally in Ireland without refitting the Whitegate refinery to handle the specific grade.
From a tax revenue POV, Corrib is still not "cash taxable" and won't be for years to come because of the cost overruns due to "Shell to Sea". PVR would also have massive tax write-offs due to prior investment. So the compelling case for Barryroe is neither tax revenues nor cheaper prices, which makes it a bit harder to twist Sleepy's arm. Nope, it's that his swivel-eyed ecoloon policies are an workable disaster ... but I doubt he's open to persuasion on *that*.