Member Info for romaron

Couldn't resist a little Christmas box for myself. 25,000 at .178692

Hi Tarmak, your memory is good. We just have to choose the winner of the 'bolly' award for the average of 2021 Brent poll which looks likely to be betweenj Juan and Therapist.
It was a bit of fun to see if we could outpredict the so called experts and I'd say we've succeeded. I think Pelle was a little cavalier in his prediction and expect him to try harder for the 2022 challenge.
I suppose the benchmark should really be Reuters as they started off the challenge idea with this:
https://www.reuters.com/article/oil-prices-poll-int/oil-set-for-steady-gains-as-economies-shake-off-pandemic-blues-reuters-poll-idUSKBN2AQ1IG but I'm hoping we can announce it in the first week of January if it is a clear winner with (say) the google average.
You've jumped the gun a bit for 2022 and there is a danger that competitors will use your calculations and feed off your efforts so you can change if you like. I might even make it necessary to email your entries as I know most of you anyway.
The competitors are the existing "not so magnificent" 7 plus you and Modestus because of your contributions over the year.

All I will say is that the 2022 award is highly prestigious and may well rank as a message board "Oscar". Watch this space in early January!

*basically it's all over for this year. There is only tomorrow and next week only Wed/Thu so not much opportunity and thin markets. Sweden is open Mon/Tue but thinking that trading will be muted as London closed.

January will be fun.

"Aker will own 21 per cent of the merged company, BP 16 per cent, the Lundin family 14 per cent and other shareholders 49 per cent."

source: https://archive.md/YKfiP#selection-2083.0-2083.130

Lundin are bigger than us (HBR sizeish) but it is a similarity with the AB & Family holdings. I don't know what it means but having Liv Stubholt on board must be useful whilst the Waldorf Production are in Kraken and have another active entrepreneur (another Norwegian). Nice to see them coming back after a millenium. Perhaps they can mend our gate that they broke the last time they visited.

Build it and they will come - perhaps not in longboats this time.

A once proud country has been shamed into handing over the reins to more ambitious and independent thinking countries, namely Sweden and Norway. I expect that once the ink is dry BPAkers will drop the "B" because this country wants nothing more to do with oil and fossil fuels. As for Scotland - where will they now go for hand-outs?
This shameless populist government does not deserve the remaining credibility some give it and the farce that was Brexit is now seen for all its faux patriotism and sense of superiority.
"Equinor ASA will drill about 25 exploration wells off Norway’s coast next year in a bet that it will be among the last companies still producing oil and gas when the world has achieved net-zero emissions.
All scenarios, including the International Energy Agency’s vision of a net-zero world, include the continued use of oil and gas decades from now, albeit in smaller quantities than today, said Jez Averty, Equinor’s senior vice president for subsurface in the company’s Norwegian exploration and production department." ...........and even the smaller Aker has much of the Viking spirit that we appear to have lost. Sweden (Lundin) isn't being led by the nose by Greta either and I despair of this country and question what its aims are.
Are we doing what the US did with China and moving our security and manufacturing base offshore?
I doubt anyone is sniffing EnQuest (at least to our knowledge) because AB would not have been able to buy shares. The opportunities are huge here but there is no British government support.
I feel let down! The sooner we go private or exit the London quote the better. There is little left for us in the UK. The ESG will find it a pyrrhic victory. I never thoiught we'd come second to Insulate Britain.

Politicians around the world are taking a bit of a hit at the moment. I often underestimate Americans because of their gung ho approach rather than their undoubted enterprise and power. The politicians though are just like us and Christmas and the New Year are signal time lines. Get through Christmas and nobody really cares about the NY as they are off work anyway. Energy prices, especially in the US, were becoming a political liability and I believe a couple of things were done. Saudi Arabia agreed not to make a fuss and other countries, in coordination, released oil from their SPR's. This acted as a safety valve and prices reacted as expected and then along came omicron. A double hit or was it? Temporarily for sure but if the omicron threat becomes more like a bad cold then all that has happened is that there has been a delay of the recovery of a few weeks. The holidays are upon us and markets are tissue thin. Just look at how Brent is jumping about. If omicron sorts itself out between now and January 4 (next 2 weeks) we are in for a bumper start to the New Year. People want to get back to normal and the price of oil won't slow the caravan.

That is exactly what I was getting at. Desperate for page fillers Bloomberg are now resorting to quoting an "analyst" just out of short trousers (Stephen Brennock) who works for a "money broker" or whatever the posh name is nowadays. PVM Oil Associates - hardly Vitol or Trafigura. My next door neighbour works for TP ICAP who are the owners and I wouldn't trust him to tell me the time.
Quote a bit of jargon and suddenly you are an expert. I trust Warren Buffet and Jeff Currie because they have experienced what this guy alludes to. There is a glut and that is no surprise and that has been well documented. Nobody can predict the future price of oil or the direction of Covid but we all take a stab. One of the biggest traps in markets is when people start assuming that what is happening today predicts the future. Oranges cheap in the market doen't mean that will be the case in January. I'll be contrarian and say that "flirting with contango" is (for me) a good sign that some smart money have bought just a little too early. Are they bothered? Not really, because they know the risks and impossibility of getting timing right.
Can I be wrong? Absolutely, but I believe the virus is much less of a threat and that the lack of investment in oil production can only lead to a structural deficit that will take years to correct. Renewables have been praised to high heaven but they still ain't cheap enough and we expect the public to expect higher energy prices AND inflation.
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm stir crazy. Once the all clear goes I have got a multitude of trips to make and I'm guessing I'm not alone.

*I was a "money broker" for 19 years and finished up at Tullett Prebon which is the TP added to ICAP. I'd hardly call myself an analyst or an intellectual compared to Jeff Currie or WB and the article is just space filler that (imo) has basically got it wrong. We shall see who is right. Looks like AB agrees with me. That'll do.

Build it and they will come.

"Brent crude fell more than 3% to trade near $71 a barrel in London, though the commodity recouped some of the day’s losses after Moderna Inc. said its Covid-19 vaccine vastly increases protection against the new strain.
Pessimism nonetheless prevailed across financial markets, as rising infections from the U.S. to Europe prompt restrictions on air travel and stricter curbs on movement. While there’s no sign yet of fuel demand cratering as it did early last year, the outlook is increasingly fragile.
Economic sentiment took another setback as President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion package of tax-and-spending was derailed by the surprise revolt of Senator Joe Manchin. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists cut their U.S. economic growth forecasts.
Oil’s market structure is also showing signs of weakness. The prompt timespread for Brent once again flipped into a bearish contango pattern on Monday, indicating the market is becoming oversupplied.
Bearish headwinds are mounting, moving into the holiday period, when thinner trading volumes can exacerbate prices swings. Demand in Asia is softening, central banks are pivoting toward tighter monetary policy to try and rein in accelerating inflation.
“It is not a case of if but when governments impose tougher restrictions,” Stephen Brennock, an analyst at brokerage PVM Oil Associates, said of the impact of the omicron variant. “Brent is now flirting with contango. This is a clear warning for those of a bullish disposition.”

on Bloomberg about 16 hours ago.

The above is basically rubbish. Chilting could have written it.

"So if he’s right, we’re in for a tough time. But is he right? Have potential investors been so bullied, or so scared, by environmental campaigners that they are unwilling to sink capital in new oil production?"

Er, yes!

Another bit of news. Lord Frost resigns from the British Cabinet. Reason s given are that he is concerned by the "current direction of travel" following Brexit. He is also concerned about tax rises and the cost of Net Zero policies. The dots do eventually join up.

*Following Chris Whitty's advice to "not mix with people you don't have to for either work or things that don't really matter to you" I have decided to isolate KO and his beau.

Chunky volume in HBR. Mostly made up of a c.20m shares/£70m UT. We aren't involved in this size because we're small cap and many funds won't even look at us. That will change. It is already changing for HBR.

Hi miles _ I'm not in HBR but use them as a bellwether for my holding in EnQuest. I have been tempted into buying HBR but fancy the smaller company where tax credits (imo) aren't being correctly valued but that isn't your question. I think the signals from the volume are very encouraging for the holders of HBR. The volume was largely covered by the UT of c. 20m shares for £70m {19,536,629 @356.00]
I'm from an FX background but auctions and fixes were common in the bourses in my day. They were more transparent and customers got a better deal in size. Banks woukld make very wide spreads and offer to "work" the order. Quite simple then to pick tops and bottoms throught out the day effectively ripping off the client. LIBOR was similar in some respects. I'd even suspect that the thinner markets also require a fairer or just a plain facility to get decent size done. I'd imagine that a minimum of 2 parties have agreed to a trade. They may have used a broker as an agent/intermediary but the negotiation was over the amount. It becomes much simpler to agree to close the deal at the auction fixing price at the end of the day which I believe is what has happened. This was the big trade and others may have joined in on one side or the other taking the lead from one or other e'g. if Goldman's was on one side (and you got a whisper) you might buy a few for yourself. People involved in this size aren't day traders and they have their own reasons for buying or selling and it won't be because of today's or Monday's price.
You are FTSE 250 and I believe heading for FTSE 100 whilst EnQuest are small cap and not on the radar of many funds because of that. HBR are a serious company and today's trades and volume are evidence of that.
I want you to do well because we are following in your wake.

Build it and they will come.

chilting - can you possibly stop your pet whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiining?

Strange reaction for a supposed holder to be elated when genuine holders of EnQuest are showing a loss. Time for his Calpol I think.

One Man and His Dog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6iHKRj9uY0

No sanctuary there either Mansardman

Well you never responded to the email I gave and I know it was correct because others contacted me on it. Your memory is poor but I invited you out first. An invitation with no way of contact is not how I make arrangements.
I think you're a sham holder but don't really care either way. I don't think we have much in common so we're cloying up the message board with irrelevances. Bit like chilting really. That's it for now. Off out.

Q/ What's the difference between KO and a puppy?
A/ With time, training and patience, it is possible to make a puppy stop whining.

Is a troll, a troll to a troll?

I suppose the only real proof of being an investor is turning up to an AGM which makes it a little difficult if you don't live in the SE. Mind you I did meet a large Swedish investor along with hitman and E121 plus an ex Shell employee at the last one.

Blimey chilting, I thought it was only my wife who knows what I'm thinking. Still I'm sure your biggest fan KO enjoys your leadership and insight. Keep up the mediocrity.

I read about the Foinaven and just thought that it was because nobody else wanted it. In that case you're left holding the parcel. Same as when we ended up with First Oil plc's share of Kraken. We may have had silly bids for it but decided to increase.
Bressay is different though but wasn't expensive and I think it's more to do with location, location, location.

The oil companies will know the real motivation but we remain in the dark imo.

Possibly. There was an interesting post on HBR at 8.27 by shal1000. I think he was being optimistic and I don't agree with his figures but we come out at about a quarter of his figures which is fair enough as they are 200k boepd and we are 50k (this isn't about accuracy). I'm still debating whether to buy any but for now I fancy EnQuest the better BUY although I think HBR has a lot of potential and is of course bigger scale.
My reasoning is that I believe we have better tax credits than they have.
"Premier Oil swung to a $1.3bn pre-tax loss in its final set of results before its proposed merger with fellow North Sea firm Chrysaor completes. The FTSE 250 firm said that the loss was mostly driven by one-off charges, including $817m relating to the partial derecognition of Premier’s UK ring fence tax losses. It added that these losses were expected to be re-recognised if its merger completes as planned on 31 March. A court hearing to approve the deal is expected tomorrow."
Naturally I don't understand the above but I haven't heard them highlighted which is indicative (to me) that they aren't that big. For us it is a different story and it will be some years before we pay tax from UK production.
Another small memory jog. In the recent HBR webcast they are tidying up assets but didn't mention Bressay (18.38%). It could also be the case that nobody else is interested.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/about-half-us-oil-pipeline-space-is-empty-after-boom-time-building-spree-2021-12-16/

https://www.reuters.com/article/column-russell-oil-china/column-china-draws-on-crude-oil-stockpiles-again-amid-strong-refinery-processing-russell-idUSL1N2T03JS

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/edf-shares-plunge-after-faults-found-french-nuclear-power-station-2021-12-16/

My favourite is the EDF one. Not because they're French or a wish to gloat about other investors losing money (there are enough saddos already here to do that) but just a reminder that the real world still exists outside of message boards or as L7 would say "sh*t happens."

I'm happy with my suggestion that a glut at the front end is often because smart money knew a shortage was coming but cannot get the timing spot on. And that's without bitterly cold weather or a conflagration in a world hot spot. Black swans aren't extinct.

Be Lucky

Quite right Modestus. The key to trolling is jeering indifference: You win because you don’t care. To a troll, caring is hilarious and (should you make the mistake of doing it) fatal.

Reminds me of an interchange I had with squif.

romaron - "I read that pessimists die younger."

squif - "I f*cking knew it!"