Member Info for romaron

Sorry. I missed my Pollyanna moment. Paying the SCF off with cash flow will not satisfy the market as the future is always unknown. However, if any of the other 3 paths to settling this SCF are taken the share price will jump because another uncertainty is removed. Unlike PMO or Tullow we are in control of our own destiny.

I'm happy with the update. Would have liked some of the Pollyanna's to have been right but it was never on the cards with the oil price movement. Natural declines and shut ins are almost always missed in message board projections but these are well within tolerances. In the past I have seen 20 percent declines in older fields with EnQuest. Up to 10 percent is not exceptional I was once told.
The SCF has slightly reduced and we should easily find the $25mio due by 31 March. We then have until Sept 30 for the remaining $360m.
We know that the company has 4 options (at least) to repay.
*out of cash flow
*extend the existing loan for a short period (some existing lenders have informally agreed)
*refinance with a new short term facility (again informal talks suggest there are willing lenders)
*a prepay agreement (Oz type deal)
and knowing EnQuest there will be other options, even an Islamic type financing in Malaysia.
The bonds are 2 years away and I'll update later on their reaction to today (if any). In all this isn't a bad result for possibly the worst year in oil since I've been invested. I'd have snatched their arms off for this RNS in April. When the battle field clears we will be sitting pretty and opportunities will arrive.

Build it and they will come.

Had a conference call on 18 Nov. They are still very bullish on oil stocks. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they've released a video but I took some notes.
They believe that oil is the biggest opportunity of any asset class. Their research goes back decades and the last time things looked this good was the late 70's when stocks and bonds were also deemed uninvestible. They state that few have the fortitude to stay in oil but that's how fortunes are made. Everybody else (except shale) have rolled over. Small caps have underperformed large caps in the past years.
The press is beginning to also promote contrarian thinking and Schroder's recovery fund mentioned that they like to buy stocks priced for 80% failure when they calculate a 20% risk. They are looking at oil but avoiding (for example) Tech stocks and Pharmaceuticals because they are deemed overpriced.
Not a trend yet but definitely shoots beginning to show.

Quick blood test and booked to go back on 9 Feb. The trial has had no side effects and is pretty much good to go. That makes 4 by my calculation; Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, and Novavax. No idea what other countries like China, Russia etc.. are doing. Just goes to show what throwing money at a problem can achieve. On the radio I heard that the fastest previous vaccine to market was 4 years. Impressive response.
I asked if I'd remain "blind" as to whether I had the placebo or the vaccine. If I get any vaccine offer they will tell me. It's 50/50 whether I have any immunity at present but that's better than most.

Be Lucky

Trump on Sunday ""The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world," he said, citing horizontal drilling and fracking. Every day we are proving we can protect our workers, create new jobs and safeguard the environment without imposing crippling mandates and one-sided international agreements on our citizens," he said.
Could the resilience of the profitless shale revolution over the last 4 years be due to behind the scene deals and a belief that another 4 years was baked in?

What's happening at North Weald airfield? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTs9m3qiP4w
Could it be another valiant resistance. Ideally situated between M11 and M25 motorways. Sources tell me that HMRC are training people in "lorry documentation". Project Storm is the code name. Apparently Brexit ballsup was unacceptable.

Off to King's midday for my 35 day check up on the Novavax vaccine trial. Gonna ask when its ready.

Be Lucky

The extension of the exclusivity period should give time to finalise the execution of a legally binding option agreement with Scott Bros which, if agreed, will grant EQTEC and its partners the right, but not the obligation,

That's a lot of caveats in one sentence but what is really amazing is the 68,156 posts. I wonder how long the road is that they're kicking the can down?

It was basically a decade ago that I was involved in domestic energy saving and basically nothing has changed. It provides headlines for the green lobby but they are basically ineffective. It is a fine balancing act between finding worthy recipients and dressing it up so that tax payers feel their money is well spent (it isn't). However, if its small enough we won't notice. Remember Feed in Tariffs when it was easy to sell photo voltaic because who doesn't like a freebie. The web sites are still incomprehensible and unless you're on benefits or off the gas grid you either aren't eligible or it ain't worth it. You might get a grant for £5k towards insulating a solid floor. The investment is £5k but it does save you £100 a year. I'm running out of runway so I'll pass thanks. A new front door for £1k seems cheap and you'll save £10 a year; pass.
The latest Czar of energy is Alok Sharma who got the gig this year after (reportedly) David Cameron, William Hague and Michael Gove turned it down. Still it could have been worse and Shapps incompetence means he won't be in Transport for long. It does though indicate the importance Government give to renewables.
There's £2 bn of Green Home Grants available. But 2 months into the scheme BEIS have issued only 267 vouchers. I'm not surprised. It is tokenism and when the world gets back to normal people (taxpayers) will want to know why exorbitant amounts are given to people who have made a life choice (e.g. renovating a disused lighthouse). Housing Associations and Local Council properties are btw normally in better condition than private properties. I don't have a problem with that but many do and they voted for Brexit. My eyes glazed over when I read about Renewable Heat Incentives (RHI) and I just felt relieved that I'm no longer involved. The whole energy saving business is a gravy train in place to placate the green lobby. Most people accept that they could be more energy efficient but don't want the hassle. They live in the real world. people usually get bullied into it by those with interests and targets. Even Grenfell was a victim. Insulation is beneficial but always they cut corners. The winners are the assessors and installers. In another 10 years little will have changed.

Thanks for that chilting. There doesn't appear to be an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for the building. There is an exemption for listed buildings and holiday accommodation rented out for less than 4 months a year and I was thrown originally because by their very nature a listed building is unlikely to have the required energy rating/efficiency for air sourced space heating to be effective. However, if money is no object and you like new fangled gadgets that can save polar bears who cares about cost. I doubt it was the NT's money that was spent. Using air-source here is the equivalent of heating a marquee. That is why in addition there are portable convector heaters included and of course the wood burner.
I once did EPC's for 40 new-build flats in N. London that were all heated by convector heaters around 2012. In one freezing apartment were 2 young students from Newcastle who were shivering in coats because they couldn't afford the heating. To add insult to injury the building had Economy 7 to get past the regs and then fitted out the apartments with the cheapest (to install and buy) form of heating but of course the most expensive to use.
From the picture it looks like stone built so no cavity insulation. The interior walls could be insulated. The windows aren't UPVC but could be double glazed. The building is exposed. Underfloor heating downstairs (no rads) whilst upstairs you can see the big rad in the bedroom. Without the EPC it's difficult to quantify but even if it squeezed in can you imagine the cost. The ground floor was probably solid so you'd have to dig up and relay the underfloor heating. Change the upstairs rads etc..
Of course the clincher was probably the unavailability of natural gas so it would have competed with oil which is of course the sworn enemy of the NT. Bit different if you live in a row of terraces in Blackburn I'd guess.
Beautiful building and spectacular scenery. Shame a bit to chilly for you to strip of your shirt and go "Poldark".

"because his boast is truthfully impossible to achieve" - è vero

chilting, can you explain? A NT holiday cottage. If it was old then it was probably unsuitable for the system. It couldn't have been listed. If it was a new building then they received generous grants no doubt. Anybody here remember EAGA? They were heading down the toilet until Carillion caught the "falling knife". It didn't end well. Anything that relies on grants and subsidies can only survive at the gift of the provider. It's fine when the amount is tiny. We all like virtue signalling and buying a poppy once a year but once it starts hitting your pocket it's a different matter. That's where the zero emissions is heading. It'sa political football and more useful for its distraction value and other 'horse-trading'.
I saw an interview on TV this week about an air-source boiler. The recipient was happy as it cost £15k but he was "eligible" so happy to take a hand-out. What people miss is that the building needs to already be energy efficient at the highest level and underfloor heating is favoured. That or huge radiators. Give me £30k and I'd look at it for my house. If I lived to be 200 it'd make sense.

With lockdown in operation much discretionary income stays in your pocket. I feel for those being championed by the like of Marcus Rashford but anybody who grew up in a working class district in the 50/60's understands hand me downs, weekly wages, tallymen and money lenders. They don't have much discretionary income and few are feckless. Luckily there is a safety net. What I do find amazing is how much oil is still being used. On the TV there were pictures of fields full of black cabs due to no demand. It obviously knocks on to hotels, aircraft etc.. but oil demand is still high. Once Covid is over demand will rush back and I doubt there will be the production to balance it.
I'm not too worried about the this govts. aim to ban new combustion engines by 2030. Will any of them be around even in 4 years anyway? Giving Transport to a party hack (Shapps) is hardly encouraging whilst who here knows who figureheads the Dept. for Business & Energy or Housing? Future promises are easy to make, especially if you aren't gonna be around when they fall due. Also higher fuel costs are pretty irrelevant when you're in lockdown as you're going nowhere. Now is the time to announce future "aspirations" as all politicians know that "talk is cheap".
Did you know that 90 percent of electric car owners also own a fossil-fuel car? Even Norway realises that virtue-signalling has its limitations. Its generous policies waive most costs. Over its lifetime, a £23k car might receive benefits worth more than £20k. They are starting to worry; exempt drivers cost them more than a billion Euros a year.
If Biden restores the full electric car tax credit it will pay £5.7k to reduce emissions by up to 10 tons. Yet he can get US power producers to cut 10 tons for just £45. If the whole world follows through & gets 140m by 2030 global emissions will reduce by 0.4 percent. Meanwhile cement manufacturing (windmills need a lot) is expected to grow from8 to 16 percent of global emissions of CO2.
These "aspirations" aren't gonna work with current technologies. I've followed energy reduction in housing for many years and progress has been dismal. They were talking about air source heat-pumps 15 years ago. Anybody here got one?

Stats from Copenhagen Consensus Center.

Build it and they will come

Handed over my contactless and was told it was unacceptable as it would make the trade a loss. Handed over a fiver and got change for 2 elbows and 3 clips for 1 1/4" pipe. Got to thinking that oil products are cheap, cheap but then realised that these are by-products (like tarmac) and are produced as they go for the combustible stuff that drives the world. That's the holy grail. Dense energy at an economic price.
The move to renewables hasn't been properly thought through and all the things that oil produces will either require alternatives or risk becoming prohibitively expensive. Gutters and drainage is just a start.
I suppose it's time to come clean. in 2012 I achieved a Level 3 diploma in Green Deal Domestic Advice training with BRE in Watford. I also met Grant Schapps and was on a Govt. advisory committee based at Eland House. It was all a load of b*llks. GS is a slippery liar and the Govt is headline chasing. Ground and air source heating is only economic for new-builds. I could go on but my position is that we all want clean air but people don't want to live a few months longer but spend decades poorer.
It's not a conspiracy just how governments work. When I attended Eland House the Labour party had at least 3 Housing Ministers. Musical chairs isn't just a children's game. Afraid Energy and Housing isn't one of the great Offices of State whichever way you slant it. At the moment they're using it to hide the balls-up that is Brexit and Covid. Hypocrisy is too kind a word.
If you wonder how I got into Energy it's easy. Remember Home Information Packs? I took the course and am a qualified surveyor. It was an initiative of the Labour Party which was immediately cancelled by the incoming Tories in 2010. It placed heavy emphasis on insulation and energy savings (EPC's). Of course 10 years down the road we now have a caring Tory Govt.
Give me a fkng break!!!!!!

Shush - this share is misunderstood by many hedge funds and analysts. Door step-lending and Wonga belong to another era but we tend to get lumped in with the likes of AMGO and NSF. The former effectively acted as a middle-man between families and we all know the result of feckless kids and hard-working parents whist NSF has a CEO who tried to retrieve his mojo but has failed spectacularly. There is little to spend discretionary income on because of lockdowns but life will return to normal. We had an embarrassing surplus of capital and some was used to buy back some of the 2023 bond at c.96.90 in August. People weren't borrowing and it was a sensible thing to do.
Today it is around par https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/43ZF/provident-financial-plc/company-page and heading for a premium.
There is a lot of spending that has been stifled but going out and holidays will stimulate the whole economy. We are one of the best placed to participate. It's not something to gloat about but as a company PFG has had a good Covid.

£3 is not a good reflection of the value and potential in this share.

This is what happens when I try to do research. The stuff that interests me means I almost always go off at a tangent. This was irresistible: "Proposed Issuance of Islamic Convertible Redeemable Preference Shares (“CRPS”)"
A small Malaysian E&P company, Hibiscus Petroleum, with interests in Malaysia and the North Sea is raising 2bn ringgits for what ostensibly (to me) looks like part of the Exxon asset sale in the Malaysian region.
All we need now is for AB to tap the Islamic Finance market. Oddly enough there is something going on in the UK to do with Student loans and the discrimination it causes for some Moslem students. They appear to have been made promises that the Government hasn't honoured but nothing surprises me with this shower and the salaries and pensions paid to administrators and executives of Student loans company (SLC) define "gravy train".
The purpose of this post is really to mess with another investor who will now waste countless hours chasing down my theory that we are, as a company, gearing up to operate in the next phase of the oil industry. We could easily be operating under Scottish law in a few years whilst our integration into the Malaysian oil industry must be especially valuable as the Asian market grows. The recent Director appointment looks at a minimum serendipitous. I wonder if the update will have any surprises.

Build it and they will come.

Hand brake turn! Lets not be hasty because then I'd have missed this from the Swedish massage board (courtesy of gurik):

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/og-players-may-form-consortiums-bid-exxon-mobils-malaysian-assets

Anybody know of a controlling shareholder of one of the companies said to be interested quoted in the article?

As many of you are aware we have a number of Swedish investors who occasionally post here. At first I was happy to have the uniquely Scandinavian view but I am reluctantly reassessing their input following this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ77auKIIAY You may wish to watch from about 4:20.

Of course I hope I'm wrong but as they say in Sweden "Haha! Humor humor said the Fox-Taxi driver on the way to the tip."

Fans of ICE are the new "deplorables". If you live in Islington then you'll notice a 60 percent reduction in car ownership in the past 10 years. However, if you live in Redcar or Hull then you'll see a 76 - 96 percent rise in car ownership. Along with obesity these deplorables insist on making their own choices. It must be doubly annoying for their political masters that they are also given a vote.
Passing legislation is one thing but ruling deplorables is akin to herding cats so as usual Boris has his finger on the pulse of the electorate (or not).
He is only doing it for their own good but no doubt he'll be misunderstood. People outside of City "bubbles" might take unkindly to having their transport taken away or priced beyond their purse. Still, they can always have cake (low calorie of course).

I live in North London which loves a Chelsea tractor because it raises you above the hoi-polloi and is something of a status symbol. One of my neighbours recently posted this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEMsGKonSln/
Imagine what he'd have if they'd won anything?

I'm not usually a fan but regarding the vaccine "There is little doubt who may be waiting longest for the vaccine: anyone who is aged between 20 and 50 and in good health".
"The Government has ordered an initial batch of 40 million doses, enough for 20 million people. Of those, UK officials claim, 10 million doses could be available this year, and the queue of the first 5 million people to receive them will largely be determined by age and vulnerability - assuming there are no surprises in the Pfizer small print, expected to be published this month."
Source Sunday Times.

Typical, you wait ages and there's gonna be 3 or 4 coming at the same time.

"the UK doesn't seem to have any on order?" - what a stupid comment. It isn't all about Pfizer. I personally know of 2 trials but confess to not understanding platform technologies. Dr. Slaoui (a good Moslem - Trump doesn't get irony) said that there are 6 vaccines that they are trialling. In the UK Astra Zeneca and Novavax working with Oxford, St. George's and King's have had (so far) no adverse reactions. Whilst testing on volunteers do you really think that delivering a vaccine and the logistics haven't occurred to the medical professionals? I was told at my booster visit that Novavax are a matter of days/weeks away from an announcement and I'm guessing AZ are too. There are others around as well and more than one country and company are involved. Cross fertilization of experience, ideas and experiments works. And what's the problem with making it available to the elderly and the vulnerable. Young and healthy people hardly know they've had it.

chilting your penetrating insight seems to revolve around "there are two ways of looking at it; this way and that way" or "it might go up or it might go down". Hesitancy and procrastination whilst being advantageous at times shouldn't be a lifelong ambition. Most here can work out the risks and downside themselves without you banging on about it all the time.

Trump speaking from WH. Looks like Covid vaccinations available In December. Similar plan as here. Those most at risk to go first. He never mentioned Biden but body language was telling. The grown ups are back in charge. The market will like it.