Member Info for romaron

The Dated Brent is around $118-$120 so not in the $140's at the height of panic but whose to say where it'll go.

Coincidental isn't it? We did one a week ago.

This follows on from my earlier post. The post on X was almost certainly NOT Ed Miliband. An over enthusiastic Spad or junior member of his team more likely. The deletion means someone in authority quickly tried to lessen the damaging post. My daughter advises a team surrounding an important figure in the Labour Party and gave me some interesting insights.

She is an admirer of Hannah Spencer arrival on the scene. Not because she is a Green supporter but because of the impact and number of online followers she has. These are important numbers and translate into votes.

She says traditional media just “doesn’t get it”. Nick Robinson the journalist when interviewing Zack Polanski mentioned several times the “breast enlargement hypnotism” incident. She said it immediately ruins the interview, and listeners turn off because they’ve moved on and NR hasn’t.

I brought up that Greta Thunberg and our Greens seem to talk less about the environment and she replied that was because it won them the ground they now hold. The environment was still there but other political aims have taken over more importance. They’ve moved on.

She admitted that the army surrounding individual Labour figures is “bloated” but the biggest problem is TIME. If it’s difficult for the advisers to get attention what chance the voters and businesses affected by the political decisions.

She was scathing about Kemi Badenoch’s attack on the Green’s use of Urdu in leaflets. She (KB) made the mistake of assuming that the Urdu speakers would automatically vote Green. Well, they’d certainly be more disposed to them I guess but many immigrants are aspirational and might see Conservatives as a better choice. Donald Trump understands this with the Spanish vote in the US.

She also brought up Scotland. Glasgow has one of the largest number asylum seekers proportionally. They also have the largest backlog of people applying for English courses to improve their English. And don’t forget these are people who find time when many work unsociable hours on Zero contracts.

You need to look under the hood to see what is going on. I don’t think it is so much “fake news” as “heavily curated” by the carriers of the news.

More colour: "In a post on X that has since been deleted, Ed Miliband wrote: “Profiting from a crisis is morally and economically wrong”, linking to an online report of BP’s profits more than doubling as oil and gas prices have been pushed higher by the conflict in the Gulf region.

He later softened his post, writing that “it would be completely wrong for a government to stand by and allow companies to make excess profits from a war”, adding: “That’s why we’re taxing these windfall profits to help with the cost of living.”

In an interview with the Financial Times, O’Neill warned against more taxes on oil and gas profits, which she said would be a “highly flawed response to the situation”.

“The opportunity for us is to work more closely with governments to unlock potential in countries like the UK, for example, where we have untapped potential in the North Sea,” she said.

BP is one of the last global oil majors still extracting oil and gas from the North Sea. Most of its large rivals have moved spending to more lucrative fields elsewhere.

What seldom gets attention is the profits from trading that BP make by being involved in all parts of the chain of energy; from renewables (which they are quietly exiting) to fossil fuels. Trump gets accused of Insider Trading but Shell and BP have been doing it for decades. Why doesn't Miliband attack the Trading profits? Because that would be an attack on the hedge funds and banks that bring in so much revenue via London as well. It is pure politics and the 'strawman' is Global Warming. Does it even exist because climate and weather has always cycled?

I now know what it was like to live in Spain during the Inquisition. Superstition and religion replaced science then.

I was going to make “Nerd Corner” the subject but most Nerds understand what they’re talking about which doesn’t apply in this case.

I consider Dated Brent (DB) a past event in most cases. Tesco agreed the pork-pie and oranges prices months ago and now they’re facing delivery failures and soaring costs. Built in are fertilizer, feed and transport costs which isn’t Tesco’s expertise. Luckily these events are normally of a temporary nature, and this isn’t their first rodeo.

I was listening to the radio, and it stated that ask any investment analyst about forecasting and they’ll look 2 years ahead. I’m trying to make sense of the gaps between DB and futures and the EnQuest price and media hysteria.

I have in front of me McDaniels forecasts and they say that Brent will be 80.58 for 2027. Now this is dated April 1 2026 but is all I have. A flash of inspiration took me here https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/energy/crude-oil/brent-crude-oil.html and I added up all the 2027 futures and divided by 12. The answer is 79.73. Remarkably close to the McDaniel forecast. Stepping back the forecast for 2027 on 1 October 2025 was 75.48. A lot has happened since but it appears that this huge impact on world energy has only made a difference of $5 a barrel?

Hardly Alan Turing insight but I added up the remaining futures and divided by 7 – the answer is 94.88.

Make of it what you will but we still only have guesswork for the front end which is referred to as DB. The question is how long will the Strait stay closed and how quick recovery will be? When that happens don’t think it’ll be headline grabbing because the financial world will be looking 2 years ahead and decomm and rebuilding isn’t sexy. They’ll have moved on. However, the world cannot function without fossil fuels and these are NEW costs and difficulties built in. Something must break and Labour cannot take the huge gamble on abandoning the NS.

Energy Security needs to be taken away from the incompetence of Ed Miliband.

Is what we're up against and there are few quick answers. Countries and industries adapt after the first events and settle into negotiations whilst at the same time furthering their long-term aims. Reopening coal-mines would fit into this. However for us we are stuck with a recalcitrant Ed Miliband who seems to answer to nobody.

It appears the first wave is over and the Dated Brent has largely settled down closer to the first future which to me indicates that the powers that be see this war between the US and Iran having no quick resolution. The panic attack that hit the West has now eased slightly and they are crossing their fingers that a resolution arrives before reserves are so depleted that rationing starts.

I have no idea where this ends but the longer it goes on the lower our debt becomes. As for Miliband - I'm not a psychiatrist.

I asked ChatGPT how much EPL from the $3.2bn. It said $50m - $120m

You lost me there Stupmy. I don't see why we should perform the same as Harbour and Serica. The fact that 3 companies are in a kinda Danse macabre only makes sense if the r.o.w. gives up on fossil fuels. Events in the Middle East suggest this is not the case. I'll concede that the common factor is Labour and the SNP whose outright hostility has caused so much damage. Remove that barrier and maybe things'll change. ATM we are sitting in the same condemned cell with them.

We are not like Harbour or come to that Serica. Harbour are more diversified country wise and Serica smash us on the debt front I believe we have been priced for failure and are still in that rut. We need NEW money and it is a bit chicken and egg. Many funds will not look at us; even when we achieve FTSE250 status.

I think it is too facile to link us to other O&G companies. We are also nothing like the Petrostates or Dictators that Miliband casually throws in at the cost of a 1,000 jobs a month. We are largely UK based and our decomm expertise and tax credits are overlooked by most. If it was that straightforward why not split your holding into HBR, SQZ and ENQ? And then what about Shell and BP? They'd be off like a shot if it was only UK O&G production. It is the trading profits which make London the obvious base.

Jim Buckee said you can have everything in your favour and the Saints on your side but if the Government is against you then you LOSE. That is the present situation with ideology replacing reality.

EnQuest is imo a recovery stock with excellent management and I expect it to outperform its 'so called' peers. The obstacle is this Government and the SNP in Scotland.

*I held RKH at 25p and patted myself for getting out flat when they went down to single figures. Today they are 80p. Change can happen FAST.

Nails it as usual:

" In the UK, Ed Miliband’s rhetoric around “leading the world” on clean power prioritises symbolic leadership over system resilience and cost discipline, made worse by the fact that not only is nobody following us and we’re increasingly seen as a cautionary tale. Targets for rapid decarbonisation of the power sector sit alongside shrinking dispatchable capacity, increasing reliance on imports, and a growing need for balancing actions.

The electricity system still depends on gas for reliability, while oil and gas remain essential to many areas of the economy including industry, transport and heating. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband insists his Clean Power 2030 plan is the solution to “getting off gas” yet the only sector that has a clear electrification target – domestic heating – will still require gas for decades. It will take 47 years to fit heat pumps in every home at the target installation rate, and in any case, we’re falling far short of meeting the target. Miliband has no plan to secure the cheap, reliable supplies of gas we will need for those 47 years."

She finished with this:

“Belief is a force. It is a force stronger than any other,”

- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

I spoke to another investor over the weekend and decided to put my thoughts in writing. Basically it was about the mystery of why we were still struggling to breach 20p. I talk to a few other investors who each hold a reasonable amount of EnQuest. It is imo because we don’t have the number of investors and there are many good reasons for that. In my case 10 years of struggling with a media obsessed with Net Zero and supported by left wing parties including Conservatives for a while (EPL). This led to the exodus from the sector because of DEI and the adoption of self-harming policies that pandered to Green voters and dodgy ‘models’. Pragmatism was suspended.

I have plucked a number from the air and suggest that funds and AB + the EBT hold 50% of the shares. I then picked a number for average shareholdings which I think are larger for EnQuest than many of our peers and even if they were an average of (say) 500,000 shares that is less than 2,000 shareholders. The small group I am in contact with have larger holdings than that and if this was duplicated the number of shareholders would drop to less than 500.

These numbers are slow to change so we only have punters competing with Bitcoin, Defence and AI which are all more glamorous than O&G which remains in the doldrums. I guess that EnQuest will say that because of holdings with the likes of AJ Bell and Hargreaves they cannot analyse these numbers and even if you used the numbers of shares held by those attending the AGM they would be statistically insignificant. However, I think it should be attempted and AI must make this easier to have a stab at it.

This has resulted in this - http://www.stockchallenge.co.uk/ftse.php

We are at number 386 and to get into the FTSE 250 would require us to be around 26p. That would make a huge difference and finally we are in spitting distance.

Along with Dumbly I think we should take notice of what is NOT being said rather than the mealy-mouthed self-serving utterances of politicians.

Hopefully we’ll have some clarity in the next few weeks.

"London’s data centres are using more power than the city’s homes in a sign of their growing energy demand.

Data centres have clustered in London to supply financial institutions and other businesses that demand high speed applications.

The city’s 271 data centres consume about 15.92 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually according to analysis by the US technology company Everpure. Its 3.49 million households use about 9.44 TWh a year, it said. The difference between the two would provide enough electricity for another 2.4 million households.

The government admitted its estimate of the future carbon emissions from new AI data centres was about 100 times too low." - The Times today,

Luckily we have deindustrialised and exported much of our carbon emissions to China and others. And anyway, you don't need much electricity living in a cave or going back to the 12th Century. I'm worried about a hosepipe ban. Tomatoes are thirsty plants.

I knew you'd understand it Hunbah. I reread it and obviously a little more sinks in each time but it cannot mask the actions by DESNZ to confuse and the media doesn't help. The media response is understandable in that their job is to entertain and keep readers/viewers up-to-date. Unless the media simplify it they will lose eyeballs and eventually their jobs.

Why not bring EGL and EPL in line? Immediately you'd have Ed Miliband saying you're not comparing like-with-like and one is a nascent industry and the other a dying industry. I'd ask why does a 35 year old 'nascent' industry still require subsidies and special treatment and the 'dying; industry is being poisoned by an ideology back by fiscal punishment whilst still being cheaper than the 'nascent' industry?

This argument is for the nerds and will NEVER be understood in detail by Joe Public but costs always appear and it depends on who presents them in the simplest way. Anyway, enough of this as it is probably only you and me here trying to read meaning into the hieroglyphics.

On another more important note on last nights Question Time from Aberdeen the SNP representative said at least twice that the EPL should go. This will be picked up by Labour and may force some action. That would be a huge boost to EnQuest and although the SNP are not friends of the O&G industry the rep would not have said it unless it was policy.

Many years ago when Morgan Guaranty was the only AAA US bank I went to a talk by their Treasury manager in London. I can't remember his name but he was a Welshman and very plain speaking. A word was beginning to appear more regularly and it was the term "derivative". The Welshman had a very simple rule in allowing them into the MGT dealing room. The bright young things that were inventing them were allowed 2 attempts to explain to him how they worked and functioned within the system. Not both at the same time so they could work out where the problem was on the first explanation and hopefully solved by the second. If it failed the second attempt it was canned. Simple.

Something similar has occurred in Labour but in this case the analysis and stress checking is done by a Department called DESNZ and its religious leader Ed Miliband. In his opinion the fault in previous models of electricity is that they didn't allow enough tolerance for wishful thinking. To make sure that the public were kept unaware they developed a kinda Dothraki language full of acronyms that only the High Priests could understand.

If you think I'm joking you should read this: https://open.substack.com/pub/cloudwisdom/p/oh-what-a-tangled-web-we-weave?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

We have some pretty smart contributors on this forum and I challenge any of them to explain this in simple English. The only thing I took from it is the protection racket aspect and how it affects the O&G industry. Ed Miliband makes Tony Soprano look an amateur.

Frac posted this late yesterday: "Wonder if this is the purpose of the extra funds : https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/line-of-sight-on-first-phase-of-uk-north-sea-project/2-1-1970951

I'd like to see the article but not a subscriber. Today James Murray said all he was allowed to say today and that was "tie-backs" are Labour's solution to a future for the NS. But what really intrigues me is that the author of the article is a certain Russell Searancke, Norway Correspondent, Oslo. He has been with Upstream 28 years so must have built up some contacts. Remember, Bressay was once licensed to Equinor. Probably nothing but I'm curious.

Typo - uncharted waters - I know how some of you love your charts. Throw 'em away until common sense returns.

Hi VoR - your comment about future oil prices by the rating agencies piqued my interest. I was idly looking at McDaniel forecasts that they release quarterly and realised I hadn't printed the Jan 2026 on and I can't retrieve it. But I have the October 1 2025 so that'll have to do. The current one is to April 1 2026 https://mcdan.com/price-forecasts/ and it made me realise how much of this oil business is a guessing game. It is such a large market that like the dollar weight of interest and importance to world trade means that it probably has a number that the consensus can work towards. A consensus is not always anchored to the actual real world. We know most economies want stable O&G prices but what does the Middle East, Russia and Norway think? The US is self-sufficient but interferes non-stop basically to protect the dollar. Other countries have arrangements too and of course there is SPRs.

So McDaniel covered Q1 of 2026 when oil had burst through $100 so the Iranian war is factored in.

What amazed me is that the forecasts from 2028 onwards are the same for Brent.

They had 2026 at 71.50 (now 9m 89.00/ 3m 78.50) and 2027 71.50 (now 80.58) so using 2026 they have a blended price of hedged and DB I guess?

This is what I think. For all intents and purposes oil projections is a 2 year game. It is the same in FX. The further out you go the riskier it gets. Longer dates rely on bond yields but it is murky. It goes to show the complications for an O&G company who often have to balance 2 year production with 5 year money.

I think it has turned on its head and it is now the next few months that are risky and unpredictable. I wonder how close McDaniel will get. They're already wrong on 2026 because you'd need a collapse of demand for them to get anywhere close and 2027 ain't looking so bright either. I'm sticking with my position and glad we've got AB and Gareth Penny on the bridge steering SS EnQuest through these unchartered waters.

I know Genghis - Nick Clegg said something similar about Nuclear and dismissed it for not coming online until 2021. That was back in 2010.

Still, we'll probably have world peace in a few years and electric bombers so you could well be right.

Steady NANM - they're not rearranging the deck chairs as it's cloudy although the wind had dropped. To be precise they're arguing about the right polish to put on the handrails but you are correct about the sinking.