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PART 2
8B1. Financial Instruments according to (DTR5.3.1R.(1) (a))
Type of financial Expiration date Exercise/conversion period Number of voting rights % of voting rights
instrument that may be acquired if
the instrument is
exercised/converted
Sub Total 8.B1
=========================================== ========================= ==================
8B2. Financial Instruments with similar economic effect according to (DTR5.3.1R.(1) (b))
Type of financial Expiration date Exercise/conversion Physical or cash Number of voting % of voting rights
instrument period settlement rights
Sub Total 8.B2
========================================================= =================== ==================
9. Information in relation to the person subject to the notification obligation
2. Full chain of controlled undertakings through which the voting rights and/or the financial instruments are effectively held starting with the ultimate controlling natural person or legal entities (please add additional rows as necessary)
Ultimate controlling Name of controlled % of voting rights if % of voting rights Total of both if it
person undertaking it equals or is higher through financial equals or is higher
than the notifiable instruments if it than the notifiable
threshold equals or is higher threshold
than the notifiable
threshold
abrdn plc
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
abrdn plc abrdn Investments
(Holdings) Limited
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
abrdn plc abrdn Investment
Management Limited
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
abrdn plc
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
abrdn plc abrdn Holdings
Limited
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
abrdn plc abrdn Investments
RNS Number : 1515R
Savannah Energy Plc
24 October 2023
TR-1: Standard form for notification of major holdings
1. Issuer Details
ISIN
GB00BP41S218
Issuer Name
SAVANNAH ENERGY PLC
UK or Non-UK Issuer
UK
2. Reason for Notification
An acquisition or disposal of voting rights
3. Details of person subject to the notification obligation
Name
Aggregate of abrdn plc affiliated investment management entities with delegated voting rights on behalf of multiple managed portfolios
City of registered office (if applicable)
Edinburgh
Country of registered office (if applicable)
United Kingdom
4. Details of the shareholder
Full name of shareholder(s) if different from the person(s) subject to the notification obligation, above
City of registered office (if applicable)
Country of registered office (if applicable)
5. Date on which the threshold was crossed or reached
20-Oct-2023
6. Date on which Issuer notified
23-Oct-2023
7. Total positions of person(s) subject to the notification obligation
% of voting rights % of voting rights Total of both in % Total number of
attached to shares through financial (8.A + 8.B) voting rights held
(total of 8.A) instruments (total in issuer
of 8.B 1 + 8.B 2)
Resulting situation Below 5% 0.000000 Below 5% Below 5%
on the date on
which threshold was
crossed or reached
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
Position of
previous
notification (if
applicable) 6.488637 0.000000 6.488637
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
8. Notified details of the resulting situation on the date on which the threshold was crossed or reached
8A. Voting rights attached to shares
Class/Type of shares Number of direct Number of indirect % of direct voting % of indirect voting
ISIN code(if possible) voting rights (DTR5.1) voting rights rights (DTR5.1) rights (DTR5.2.1)
(DTR5.2.1)
GB00BP41S218 Below 5% Below 5%
====================== ====================== ====================== ======================
Sub Total 8.A Below 5% Below 5%
============================================== ==============================================
8B1. Financial Instru
TiL - but we don’t know that it’s Gov sign off holding up the deal. There are many other factors that could be holding things up, such as:-
Partners
Funding
Licensing
Nigeria debt refinance being in place
II’s not happy with structure of deal
Petronas issues
Sudan war and associated politics
To name but a few.
The Nigerian government has won a case in a British Court that has overturned an $11bn (£9bn) damages bill awarded to a firm in 2019 following a dispute over a failed gas deal.
The fine amounted to a huge chunk of Nigeria's foreign reserves.
Monday's ruling is part of a protracted legal battle between British Virgin Islands-based firm Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) and the Nigerian government.
Nigeria's lawyers argued that P&ID had paid bribes to obtain the contract and corrupted lawyers to obtain confidential documents. P&ID denied Nigeria's allegations, blaming the failure of the gas deal on institutional incompetence.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu welcomed the decision by the Business and Property Court in London.
In a statement, he described it as a victory for Africa and the developing world, which he said had long been on the receiving end of “overt exploitation”.
Campaign group Spotlight on Corruption said Nigeria’s economic prospects had been held hostage by what it said was an arbitration award built on bribes and lies.
In his ruling released on Monday, the judge found that P&ID had paid bribes to a Nigerian oil ministry official in connection with a 2010 gas contract, and had failed to disclose this when it took Nigeria to court after the deal fell through.
I would not want to see $140 oil for ANY reason, most of all by an escalation in the Middle East. I would not want to see it even from supply / demand imbalance due to lack of CAPEX spending over the last 8 years. $80 - $100 oil is the sweet spot for me, giving oil companies HUGE profits whilst not affecting regional / global inflation / recessions too much.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Allianz-Trade-Says-Oil-Could-Hit-140.html
Africa Oil Week
My trip to Africa Oil Week was extremely fruitful and a number of countries as well as companies showed just how well they are doing on the continent. Country wise I would pinpoint Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Nigeria as being in the spotlight, the latter due to San Leon Energy being able to announce the huge funding for the pipeline during the conference. Also speaking to Apache I learned more about Egypt and why Pharos and others remain keen.
The other country that was being mentioned a great deal was Morocco, ahead of next week’s Morocco Summit it was good to see a full complement of Chariot executives speaking at the conference and plenty of chatter about Sound and its progress (see below) as well as SDX and its reemergence and of course the exciting potential at Predator who won’t be at the Summit.
Clearly Afentra are doing very well in Angola and I’m just picking up on Corcel as well who are in country. Finally Eco Atlantic appear to be gearing up for a spectacular campaign, not just in Africa either.
Finally whilst British Airways cannot be blamed for the cancellation and 28 hour delay of the return flight from Cape Town to London but it can be delayed for a disgraceful policy of overbooking which led to an unseemly session of fare paying passengers being booted into touch…
I know we hardly produce any oil ATM but this bodes very well for us should we eventually get hold of some decent production. Well worth a read. Also with all the weakness around gas prices ATM, I’m really liking our price gas contract + annual inflation increases.
https://uk.investing.com/news/commodities-news/oil-prices-surge-on-spr-refill-plans-middle-east-fears-persist-3198075
Hi scotpak - hope you’re well and still looking in? As you seem to have your finger on the pulse of the NGN fx stuff, what are your views on the Reuters note I put on earlier today and specifically what impact it may have on our refinance work stream and the associated term sheet?
K & TiL - considering the super 7 are divesting $bn’s of assets and we have ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to grow our hydrocarbon and renewable footprint in Africa, it seeks like a bloody hard job in finding the deals we want and trust. Like you say, with all this networking going on, surely something has to come to fruition at some point - and hopefully soon.
On another note, and i have no idea how this impacts our ‘imminent’ re-finance of Accugas debt:-
ABUJA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Nigeria's naira hit a record low of 1,100 per dollar on the black market on Wednesday, online platform abokiFX showed, a day after the currency hit a new low on the official market due to persistent dollar shortages.
The naira has been in freefall on the unofficial market, where it trades freely, which worsened after currency restrictions were lifted on the official market.
The unit fell to a record low of 980 naira to the dollar on the official market on Tuesday.
The central bank has said it will intervene in the foreign exchange market occasionally to boost liquidity, after last week ending an eight-year ban on some items that were restricted from accessing dollars on the official market.
Last month, the currency slid past 1,000 naira per dollar on the black market and continued to weaken as excess dollar demand is funnelled into the informal market from the official market.
And finally a FYI:-
N'DJAMENA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Chad's defence minister and the government's general secretary resigned on Wednesday, an administration spokesman said, after two separate sex tapes purporting to show the men were shared widely on social media.
Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo accepted the resignations of defence minister Daoud Yaya Brahim and the government's general secretary Haliki Choua Mahamat, Kebzabo's spokesman said in a statement, without giving further details.
The videos, which were circulated on Sunday and Monday, purportedly showed the men engaging in intimate acts with other people. Reuters could not independently verify the material and was not immediately able to reach either man for comment.
Sex scandals are rare in Chad, a mostly Muslim country with conservative social morals.
“Savannah intend to publish an AIM Admission Document in respect of the PETRONAS Acquisition on or before 15 December 2023.“
So if the deal were to close on 15th Dec, it could be 100 weeks of economic interest to SAVE if the effective date was 1/1/2021. As we know the purchase price was stated as up to $1,250m and we are hoping that a decent chunk of that will be paid post deal closure from future production. Obviously we would all like this number to be as high as possible but I’m sure Petronas will want a reasonable amount of cash (debt to ourselves) in order that we take our own fair share of risk in the deal, especially with the ongoing unrest in Sudan and possible threat to the export pipeline.
So let’s say we managed to agree $300m from future production, it would leave $950m, minus the economic interest calculation for the 100 week period. Over the last 100 weeks, I would guess that Brent has taveraged somewhere around $90 and I am assuming average daily production of 40k (I would hope a worst case number). Now if we were to be credited with $30 per barrel we would see a reduction from the $950m of $840m (100 weeks x 7 days x 40,000boepd x $30) leaving us with only $110m of debt.
If the conservative daily production number or $30 / barrel were to be slightly higher, we would clear the $950m in full.
These numbers seem a bit too good to be true, so I’d appreciate anybody on here marking my homework and commenting accordingly.
Just over 8.5 weeks to go…anybody thinking of arranging the £1 Christmas Party - PMSL
Let’s hope that Governments looking to award us contracts take all this great work we are doing into consideration when compared to our peers and sign on the dotted line. We know that the super 7 looking to divest assets take this seriously when selling to juniors, so we need to have all our sustainability ducks lines up (which we have in spades and some) but it’s the likes of Kiir and his ministers who need to value this stuff when making their final decisions and getting their Mont Blanc fountain pens out:-
#Savannah is delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted in the upcoming 2023 @IRSocietyUK Best Practice Awards for the ‘Best Communication of Sustainability’! The awards will be held on 21 November 2023 in London.
This award recognises year-round continued communications with investors and stakeholders, setting out the way that a company approaches the identification, assessment and management of sustainability-related opportunities, risks and performance, and, ultimately, how this underpins a company’s long-term resilience and sustainable growth. We are pleased to be recognised for our integrated approach to sustainability communications, focusing on our corporate purpose of delivering ‘#ProjectsthatMatter’ and underpinning our efforts to address energy poverty in Africa through both hydrocarbon AND renewable energy.
Read more about our sustainability.
2022 Sustainability Report bit.ly/3JLZYsn
2022 Savannah Energy TCFD Report bit.ly/3Qt2Fmx
2022 Savannah Energy SASB Report bit.ly/3Qf28Ep
#Sustainability
#BestPracticeAwards2023
#ProjectsthatMatter
K - hi and good to see you here again. I like many other look for the clues on the way words are put together - but it is really hard to get 2 + 2 = 4. But from the long set of replies I posted, here are my quick take aways.
1 could be longer than I hoped for before we get to the 3 + 1 ICC rulings
2 at long last debt restructure does seem a lot closer (sigh of relief)
3 this is my main one by far. There is a sentence:- “ We plan to give a detailed strategic update for all investors around the publication of our Admission Document in Q4 2023.” I am not on about the 1st part of the sentence re strategic update! I am on about the “around the publication of our AD in Q4 2023”. I am hoping that they really do believe this will happen. Maybe it was just genuinely missed word but this bit did not have the word “expected publication”!!!
Anyway like Z says - just a big waiting game now. Maybe we will get debt RNS soon and maybe a few AI papers if they find out a few new snippets. Strange the Caltech stuff came and left like a hurricane with nothing being heard of it since. Strange old set up this African oil business stuff - but hey ho it is what it is. We could come back sub 20p or over a quid!!!
PART 3
3) PR
We are being given very minimal information with regards current activity and current / future strategy. We only hear from Andrew when he feels compelled to do so. Can I ask that you put together a Webcast / presentation to be delivered to PI's with a'live' Q&A and not pre-submitted questions? On this note can I also ask that Andrew speaks a bit slower and more clearly as when he's in Africa, I really struggle to understand what he says. I note that we were promised an informal night (meet the BOD) for PI's with nibbles etc which has not yet materialised. Could I please request that you put something on for us sometime in Q4?
We plan to give a detailed strategic update for all investors around the publication of our Admission Document in Q4 2023. We note your comment on the informal evening and will revert once an appropriate date has been considered.
Kind regards,
Sally
PART 2
We conduct thorough due diligence on all of our proposed acquisitions, whilst recognising that we operate in often challenging emerging market jurisdictions. We have a robust risk management framework in place to ensure that clear procedures for risk identification, assessment, measurement, mitigation, monitoring and reporting are aligned with Savannah’s strategic aims and the Board’s risk appetite – see pages 92-101 of our 2022 Annual Report for more details on our Risk Management.
How many cases do we have with the ICC, what is their current status and do any of them have hearing dates listed?
In relation to the nationalisation of our interests in Chad, we have three arbitrations seated with the ICC in Paris, and one seated with the ICC In London. These have been brought by our subsidiaries Savannah Chad Inc (“SCI”) and Savannah Midstream Investments Limited (“SMIL”). We will provide further updates as appropriate in relation to the progress of the various cases. However, these are currently at a relatively early stage in the process.
Are SAVE still looking to undertake new M&A in as I would like to see us sort out our core business before we take on any more risky, very expensive M&A activity? I'd like to see debt sorted, compression completed and new customers added in Nigeria before we take on any other deals. Personally I think we should work on a consolidation plan for a period of time.
As noted above, we expect to have the Naira transitional facility in place in Q4 2023. As noted in our Half Year 2023 results announcement, we are making good progress on the US$45 million compression project in Nigeria. Following the front-end engineering and the associated order of long lead items, detailed design work has commenced and is on track to be completed in Q4 2023, while startup is planned for mid-2024. We also added new customers in Nigeria and have seen continued momentum in H2 2023, with contract extensions secured with three customers, amounting to a total of up to 85 MMscfpd. Such is the strength of demand for gas in Nigeria that we were also pleased to reach an agreement with Amalgamated Oil Company Nigeria Limited (“AMOCON”) in the first half of this year, to purchase up to 20 MMscfpd of gas from them over the course of the next ten years. As mentioned in our CEO’s Letter to Shareholders in Savannah’s 2022 Annual Report, we continue to review M&A opportunities and will pursue those which we believe would be accretive for shareholders.
PART 1
Back from a stunning City break in Valencia now and pleased to have received a very comprehensive reply from Sally this morning. Personally I can’t fault the reply at all and am extremely grateful for such a detailed reply for which i have replied with my sincere thanks. I won’t analyse or comment on the words below but It would great to hear the views of the folk on here who know SAVE well - you know who you are LOL:-
1) Debt
We have known about this issue since the completion of the 7E RTO. We have also been working on it for in excess of two years with several 'expected dates' for closure missed. How on earth have we ended up in this situation whereby failure to renegotiate or refinance our current debt will seriously jeopardise the going concern of the whole company?
Why was this not completed to stabilise, underpin and safeguard the company before we embarked on our very risky M&A activities?
As you say this issue is not new, having been disclosed in our accounts since 2021. The refinancing of the debt acquired upon the Nigeria acquisition has taken longer than originally anticipated. However, as noted in our recent Half Year 2023 results announcement, we anticipate putting in place the Naira-denominated transitional facility during Q4 2023, with a term sheet already agreed with the lenders for this facility. We also do not consider that the current financing in any way jeopardises the financial stability of the company – we continue to adopt the going concern method of accounting and the audit opinion from BDO is not modified in this respect.
2) M&A
Having had a team of people conducting due diligence on over 20 potential opportunities in multiple countries, why did we decide to go in to 2 (Chad & South Sudan) of the most corrupt, dangerous and untrustworthy jurisdictions in Africa? With only Accugas underpinning the company, why did we not take on lower risk profile M&A opportunities before taking on these very cheap, very high risk deals?
What is going on with the South Sudan deal? After all the recent press speculation, why have SAVE not updated the market? If this press speculation had occurred while we were trading, the share price would have tumbled and I'm sure you'd have had to issue something. Why is this different while we are suspended?
As noted in our recent Half Year 2023 results announcement, we continue to advance the various workstreams required to complete the acquisition of PETRONAS International Corporation Limited’s energy business in South Sudan (the “PETRONAS Acquisition”) and intend to publish an AIM Admission Document in respect of the PETRONAS Acquisition on or before 15 December 2023. Whilst we do not comment on press speculation, we would note that both ourselves and PETRONAS are continuing to engage fully with the Government of South Sudan and are all working together in country as we continue to progress the transaction to its expected completion.
I’m sure this will get sorted but it’s jut a matter of time. I think our projects will also be fine but god knows what delays we will have to put up with.
“ Algeria has announced it has suspended its efforts to mediate the political crisis in Niger following the coup in July.
Its foreign affairs ministry said in a statement on Monday that declarations from Nigerien authorities had raised “legitimate questions about their real willingness to follow through on their acceptance of Algerian mediation”.
It has now put the process on hold pending commitment from the junta to continue with the mediation.
Last month, Niger accepted Algeria’s offer to mediate in its political crisis aimed at returning the country to constitutional rule.
In August, Algeria had proposed a six-month transition period led by a civilian authority.
But the head of the junta, Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani, who seized power in July, wanted a three-year transition period.
Algeria had also objected to a military solution to the crisis in Niger following threats by the regional bloc Ecowas of a possible military intervention to restore democracy.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who is also the chairman of the regional bloc, had welcomed the mediation process, but this latest development will further frustrate efforts to resolve the political crisis in Niger.”
Niger has been forced to cut its budget by 40% over the impact of sanctions and suspension of aid after the 26 July coup. There are fears that the sanctions may worsen the economic situation in Niger - one of the world’s poorest countries.
In a statement on Saturday, the military junta announced a 2023 budget cut from $5.3bn to $3.2bn, although details of the cuts are lacking.
The West African country depended on over 40% of this year’s budget on aid from external partners.
The coup which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum attracted regional and international sanctions including border closures, frozen assets and halted aid supplies.
The import-dependent country has recorded soaring food and commodity prices and limited supply of medicines, owing to trade restrictions.
This has however not deterred popular local support for the junta.
CYB - these articles sound great don’t they. But when it gets to the business end of deals, who the hell can you trust? That’s what we pay AK so much for - to work it all out and get people to sign on the dotted line. Let’s hope he earns his 2023 remuneration package - one way or another before the end of December.
On another note, Sally sent me a nice reply acknowledging my email and said they will reply but not had the reply yet. Will keep yo all posted but am away next week on a City Break to Valencia.