Member Info for romaron

The more presentable conscience of juststopoil.

Not us - Ithaca (ITH). Last chat was on 6 May but yesterday they released their Q1 results. And this is a company with interests in Cambo and Rosebank. Zero comments on their message board. I don't really follow them so the following may have some mistakes. After the first glance ($133 Dividend 2023 and $400m target for 2024) I was thinking "why am I invested in EnQuest?" but it was worth making the detour. I listened to the QA and it removed (for me) any need to ask about EPL at the EnQuest AGM as it would elicit the same response (listen from 49.00).

I did like this on slide 8 - Redeployment of existing FPSO modified for Rosebank. The explanation was that it is far more environmentally friendly etc. than a new one - EnQuest producer may yet be a deal maker?

RBL - now this is beyond me. Neptune will suffer a 40/45% cut in their RBL because of the EPL. Ithaca do not expect a material reduction. Not a question I could ask at the AGM as I wouldn't understand the answer anyway. The QA is current and really the latest update on the NS industry although I did have a problem with some of the accents - Zippy can probably translate.

*happy with my EnQuest position as they don't seem to have any large tax credits and their reserves aren't that much bigger than ours. Do fancy the dividends though.

How dare you complain!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lWJLwbfNo0

Mind you - she's a child. Adults normally know better.

Let me know how your reindeer herding does once the economic realities really begin to bite.

This was in November 2022 " The most strongly supported measures are those which most people probably believe would not affect them – changes in pension fund investment rules and frequent flyer levies – while support for phasing out gas boilers has halved and support for EV subsidies is now only slightly positive."

This was canvassing from Ipsos Mori polling that shows that support for most Net Zero measures is falling. Type in Net Zero Living and prepare to be surprised. The evangelists are desperate and their stormtroopers (a.k.a. juststopoil) pay even less attention to the law than 'Mizzy'.

The public are not idiots.

Jeffrey - I'd say we're more like swans. Gliding serenely but our feet going like mad beneath the surface. I used to often add "build it and they will come" but never expected them to abolish fossil fuels so quickly and build renewables which are uneconomic, unreliable and with some still at the test-tube stage instead. Progress isn't going back to a bucolic pre-Industrial Revolution lifestyle without fossil fuels that the majority of the world will not be abandoning any time soon. I wasn't being rude to PYUECK earlier regarding canvassing because they ask vague closed questions that don't really get to the point. Ask the public if they are prepared to take the gamble on renewables without the insurance of fossil fuels? Are they prepared to risk exporters from other countries to treat us fairly with more expensive and dirtier fossil fuel imports? Ask if they think that £50K is a fair price to pay for upgrading to an eco-dream home? Ask them if it is advantageous to our reputation to charge penal rates at the first opportunity and drive a once proud and important industry into the ground on specious grounds and calculations that no longer apply? Ask them how much a 'promise' weighs and is it right that protestors have more rights than people needing to get to work and make appointments? Ask them if 'energy security' no longer matters in a global world? I would imagine that the 9X quote is now history and not to be repeated but I won't let them forget.

The AGM is unlikely to enlighten us further but those of us attending will try. I think it fair to ask the question (because analysts will have done the same calculations) just what their contingency plans are up to and including the next budget. I realise they cannot make market moving statements or release commercial secrets or talks but they will lose the remaining support of retail investors if they stone-wall us. It means we have to ask open ended questions that at least give more colour and a half-smile or grimace can often be related back here.

*climate-change - it is my daughter's birthday tomorrow and when she was tiny we used to have a snowball fight in the back garden. The 'snowballs' were the blooms of Gelder Rose (Viburnum opulus). Plants don't know about climate change and the snowballs have turned up as regular as clockwork over the past 29 years give a day or so. Weather has been renamed climate and I'm old enough to remember the Canvey Island floods of 1953. Following that we have decided to build on flood plains and crowd the coasts and build next to rivers. Perhaps it is a population problem. Cycle lanes and ULEZ won't save us.

Https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2023/may/labour-needs-a-properly-funded-plan-for-the-north-sea-and-north-sea-workers-unite-will-not-accept-jam-tomorrow/

Naturally JSO aren't in Unite. You usually need a job within an organisation and are a worker or an employee. They even still use that old-fashioned method for representatives. It's called democratic voting.

We are seeing the "4 D's" and their impact on Enquest and other NS oilies (Debt, Divorce, Death and Decommissioning). The direction feeds on itself to a degree and one of the best examples is the impact that EPL has had on RBL.

There are currently no excess profits, whether "obscene" or "windfall", for production in the NS basin but there is also NO chance that we will stop importing gas and oil in the next 27 years.

Both political parties are guilty of going all-in on a bet that can have only one result in speeding up the decline of the basin. I agree with KO and sense subtle changes and we could even have a race to correct the error because whatever the result of the next General Election neither want to be cornered or in a situation whereby they destroyed the income/tax from our O&G and having to pay higher costs with the bonus of higher emissions for imports. That is NOT a WIN WIN.

Companies are struggling to stay afloat so will keep producing but with threats all around and JSO running Labour policy there is little incentive for new fields and Labour are threatening any incentives by calling them "loopholes". Words DO matter.

The biggest threat though is that old fields decline closer to 20% than the 7/8% that I often see used. It happened to us a few years back. Without continual investment old fields quickly become uneconomic. The situation is indeed dire and neither party can say they weren't warned.

Hi PYUECK - by your comment does that mean your job is in the political spectrum or were you helping out at the recent local elections for example? My argument against canvassing (and the results can be deceiving) are that unless something impacts you directly then it drops down your priorities when questioned.

The energy 'crisis' has gone for now in the public's eye but if any government raised fuel duty there would be an enormous outcry. Some Labour are distancing themselves from Sadiq Khan and ULEZ. Let's see what happens at the next London Mayoral elections. I had to change my car. I won't forget or vote for him. Sadiq khan has started blaming right wing conspiracies for the reaction towards ULEZ. I'm NOT right wing and you know what they say about politicians; when they start to use the Nazi trope they've lost the argument.

As for taxation I realise it is a necessity and I have never in my lifetime heard the public ask for an increase in the tax or rise in the cost of utilities that they pay.

By the way I hope for world peace but have never won a beauty competition (the jury was fixed).

Hi Zippy - my media adviser requires transport to Gatwick tomorrow (speaking engagement in Denmark) because of the train strike so I will have her trapped for around 1 1/2 hours. I intend to ask some questions about the FOI I am sending in and how long they usually take to respond. I've been told not to ask for extensive breakdowns and say that raw data is fine and redactions are expected. I just want numbers.

Insulation and heat pumps were a mess at the tail end of the last Labour government and I was part of a focus group giving feed back with regular meetings at Eland House. In 2 years there were 4 housing ministers. It isn't a dig at Labour just an acceptance that housing ministers are more transient than most and the Tories aren't any better. A particular beef I had was how unfair the whole system is to people living in apartments. I was totally ignored because the problems inherent in blocks are practically intractable and it is a group that will not be adequately served by any legislation from either party. [It was partly responsible for Grenfell but that's another story] The civil servants I met were on the whole dedicated and talented. The task is enormous and 'catchy slogans' demean its importance to ordinary people and hides the fact that it is aspirational for many [who doesn't want a top of the range Tesla] who will never be able to afford the costs of a transition to Net Zero.

I will continue to pursue this course because I do have some unique experiences in this area. I remember working out the cost of the hydrogen village in Fife and that worked out around £100k per house. Now I have something similar in my own London Borough and will pull levers if I don't get a response.

Looks like I'm becoming an activist whether I like it or not.

part of a reply from my mp, bambos charalambous, dated 15 march after i wrote to him about jso planned 'slow marches'.

"finally, i recognise the concerns you have raised about protests. of course we criticise any protests that are dangerous, such as the blocking of the m25 by insulate britain last year. however, the right to protest is extremely precious and one of our proudest democratic traditions. it is only right that our laws do not, and should never, seek to shield those in power from public criticism and public protest.

the police and courts already have powers to deal with serious disruption or dangerous protests and these powers have been used frequently to deal with recent disruptive protests including locking on and blocking roads. this month, for example, i voted against a series of amendments to the public order bill as this legislation fails to safeguard the right to protest."

so one reading of this (and bc always follows the party line) is that blocking motorways is wrong and dangerous but what jso does should be tolerated? a conspi****** would jump to an immediate conclusion regarding jso and labour's shared ideology and cooperation.

Through a letterbox actually to Net Zero watch

"Dear Sirs, I read the book Not Zero by Ross Clark and listened to his podcast with Harry Wilkinson. I agree with almost everything he has written. There is a small mistake on page 212 of the book regarding ULEZ. It is the other way round. Can you pass it on as Ross is highly elusive when it comes to a contact address or email. It is petrol over 17 years and diesel 6 years. I know because I recently changed a 63 plate diesel that was perfectly serviceable. Mistakes are easy to make in this complex subject and they are rarely challenged. Cant and ideology rule. There is little room for facts. It isn’t only Ross that slipped up and Fergus Ewing the Scottish MP (listen at 4:48) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eHqeMRlFmE stated that importing LNG from the US had 4 X the emissions of our NS gas. Ross on p.224/225 is more accurate. However, Fergus Ewing’s exaggeration pales into insignificance when compared to the Labour mantra that renewables are 9 X cheaper than gas & oil. It was said by Ed Miliband many times including his Conference speech and Keir Starmer repeated it in his New Year speech and at Davos in January. It has a regular guest appearance on BBC QT.

My motive in writing is that I am a retail investor in EnQuest which is far from being an “oil & gas giant” and I only wish it had made “obscene profits”. I am one of many small investors and pensioners (I am 74) who have suffered from this headlong rush towards Net Zero without sensible debate. There are literally thousands of us who would welcome a body that we could align with and use our energies to get the true story out.

I even attended a Juststopoil event in February (think Tooting Popular Front) that was poorly attended and they brazenly announced that they would begin ‘slow marches’ in April. I wrote to my MP and Sadiq Khan with my concerns. I received peremptory replies regarding the ‘inalienable right’ to protest with my MP, Bambos Charalambos. boasting that he had voted against the Public Order Bill. I am happy to share my correspondence.

I am a qualified plumber as well as a Green Deal Domestic Adviser. I am also a surveyor with experience in property management now retired. I can promise you that many of the plans for Net Zero are unworkable and I am shortly to have a new gas boiler fitted.

My plea is to be pointed in a direction where I can apply my energy and knowledge that will stop this crazy rush into impoverishing those that can least afford it. This could turn into another Poll Tax and once again the politicians will escape blame until they can be booted out. The damage will be horrendous.

Reading: https://www.netzerowatch.com/the-ieas-comedy-data/

*I'll make a FOI to Enfield regarding the expenditure on getting properties NZ compliant by 2050. It is plucking figures from the air but somewhere around £1.2 trillion for the UK as a whole or £44 billion a year.

Agree KO - also helps me refute the claim by Tessa Khan of Uplift who says oil production doesn't matter to the UK as its exported elsewhere. That mean we forego the revenue and taxes that generates. They can't have it both ways. Energy security isn't a concern of theirs [Uplift].

*Good luck with the short TerryMC1. I can't compete with your output. I'd be past a quarter of a century if I posted as frequently as you.

Ed Miliband has become that plastic bag stuck in a tree, flapping in the wind. Nobody knows how it got there or what its purpose is. The problem is nobody really cares either and can't be bothered to do anything about it.

An article in The Times today by Patrick Maguire who has impressive credentials and contacts inside the Labour party. The article is about the unlikelihood of Rachel Reeves following through with the £28 billion to be borrowed EVERY year and given to Ed Miliband's new climate change ministry.

They are running future policies through and it isn't all the plain sailing we read about. A close adviser to Starmer said to the author "That £28 billion is a risk if not explained properly. And we haven't explained it yet." The Labour leader will try in a speech in the coming weeks. The £28 bn although still high in labour's plans is likely to be cut under her fiscal rules. Pat McFadden is very hawkish on profligacy. It isn't a team that will fight to the death to defend Ed Miliband's favourite policy. An influential ally to Starmer reacted with gale-force venom to the suggestion that Labour would ban new North Sea oil and gas development with: "Crackers, reckless, vote-losing stuff. Let's buy it from Putin and the Libyans instead. Never mind the jobs." The truth is that the Labour leadership don't quite yet know what the public are willing to hear. Expect to hear much less about the £28 bn.

Another senior aide to Starmer paraphrased: "We can sell jobs, lower bills and national security to the public. We probably can't sell more debt," Even pithier from another Starmer strategist: "We should just call it the f*** the Russians fund."

I imagine that several of Maguire's contacts within Labour were quite happy for this article to go to print. All is definitely not as it seems. Red Ed has been remarkably quiet of late and of course he will be blamed for Starmer claiming twice in January that renewables are 9 X cheaper than fossil fuels.

I was driving and listening to LBC. They had a one-sided phone in about no more fossil fuels and the miracles of renewables. By now most of us can refute their claims and it is quite easy for us to spot when they take one item out of context and repeat it until it becomes almost true by repetition. It is not the same for the average listener. Trump did it with the fixed election claims. If enough people or an activist lobby want it to be true then it almost defies logic and transforms into a fact. Once indoctrinated some individuals will not let go of this misinformation.

Of course they need an element or at least a strong possibility that there is a grain of truth in it and then you torture that claim and mould it into something that can become a pithy slogan.

With these phone-ins and media interviews most watching or listening aren't experts and cannot really challenge the 'expert' who could easily be (for example) a representative of Uplift and quotes numbers that the interviewer or listener cannot really challenge then they have scored points. There is rarely a supporter/expert of fossil fuels prepared to face the wrath of the evangelists.

It happened to me.

One of the callers said that the O & G industry receives more subsidies than taxes it pays. I googled and one of the first headlines I got was this "North Sea oil companies receive more money from the government than they pay in taxes

The UK has given firms including Exxon and Shell hundreds of millions of pounds in rebates."

They cherry-pick specifics and do not mention that a large proportion of these 'subsidies' go direct to the consumers and miss out the companies completely with a frozen fuel duty for motorists for example. Then there is the fact that businesses in the UK pay more tax than other industries and if the NS was such a money machine why have the 'oil giants' mostly left the basin? Decommissioning is claimed as a cost the public will have to bear. Labour were in control of the UK at different times and much of this happened under their watch too and is simply (imo) how business works. You don't have an outcry at Apple or Amazon's 'obscene profits'.

I think I am justified by replying in the same vein and asking why the NHS doesn't make a profit?

What they also miss is that Energy is the lifeblood of the economy and everyday life. There aren't any simple solutions but we could be heading for the greatest experiment of our lives soon. Living without it or rationing it.

I don't think the public want that.

*If any numbers guy can give a better explanation of how the rebates or 'loopholes' as Labour describe them work it would be useful to the rest of us.

A further thought is that it could also be a contingency plan that would help whatever party is in power. If renewables underperform as we are pretty confident they will it is important we have insurance. Isn't that what "energy security" is all about? Only need to develop if the renewables aren't taking up the slack or are UNAFFORDABLE. There is no 'Money Tree'.

I'm sure that legislative, industry and legal minds can come up with a proposal.

The clever move would be to declare Bressay/Bentley as contiguous to Kraken. Before anybody scoffs there are already enough exaggerations out there that make this a feasible argument. Labour would routinely object but possibly with a waning passion as the reality of NO North Sea backstop begins to sink in and they could be left holding the parcel.

Maybe a trap will be sprung. If Keir Starmer is interviewed by someone who does understand the complexity of the energy situation then he will have to "own" some of the wilder claims he has made. I know I go on about the "9 X cheaper" quote but it is now in the subconscious of many and I know juststopoil accept it as a tenet of faith. I was shown it on one of their mobiles as "proof". Maybe they could simply ask for his definition of an "oil giant" and if all profits and dividends are "obscene". It really is a reverse case of "First they came for the socialist" (Martin Niemöller)

*2 juststopoil nutters invaded the pitch during the Saracens v Sale RU Premiership play-off. They were booed off by 70,000 voters. I hope Keir was watching.

"By letting ideology trump pragmatism, Labour risks repeating the mistakes of the past."

It's in their blood. They panicked into the Tanganyika "ground nut" scheme back in 1946 and were swiftly removed. It has echoes of the Betamax v VHS choice. We are the Betamax but their VHS has either not been invented yet or suffers from intermittency and much higher costs. Many millions still have their expensive recorders (gas boilers and petrol cars) and may resent being forced to go without or change and who is going to pay for the NHS?

*I do hope they dust off the quotes at the beginning of the year by Keir Starmer at Davos and other acolytes regarding the "9 X cheaper" mantra.

Hi Mansardman - I'm not expecting anything from the AGM. There will be HARD questions but our board is equally adept at evading them and of course have the protection of salaries and fees. Many retail investors don't.

The recent Times article "Treasury idiocy is killing North Sea energy" May 25 is worrying because it states that ministers privately admit that the WFT was a mistake. Labour has vowed to close down 'loopholes'. This is the incentive to invest in new fields in the NS. Unintended consequences will come and bite them in the *rse. The problems we face are now threatening the salaries and fees of the board and management. I'm angry. Why aren't they?