Member Info for romaron

NatWest have just reported their biggest profits since 2007 - pre tax £6.2bn. I don't know what the financial hurdle is for windfall taxes to be applied.

Judging by the two by-election wins yesterday Labour don't have to change. They're doing fine with their policies. Voter ignorance on the cost of energy is unlikely to change.

I missed this one from November 2022: "“You can never say it enough – Clean British power is cheaper than imported fossil fuels. Nine times cheaper.” You'll probably think I'm obsessed with the 9X shibboleth (I am) but what is different is this was said by Keir Starmer at the CBI Conference. Not one delegate challenged this blatant LIE. By staying silent they allowed it to travel to Davos in the January. I read that the CBI is struggling to be relevant. It should be put out of its misery.

*when Al Gore was born the polar bear population was about 7,000, now there are just 30,000 left

Brilliant article by William Wallace. Agree M - we need more of this. It will get the public's attention. If he can speak as well as he writes we need him on TV.

In Energy Voice they comment on the potential Bressay gas tie-back. Some picks. "In December, North Sea general manager Steve Bowyer said the gas project could be an “early production solution” at Bressay."

"EnQuest (LON: ENQ) said Thursday it will push on with plans to slash emissions at its Kraken FPSO using gas from a new tie-back to the Bressay oilfield."

"The London-listed operator said associated gas from the planned oil development will be used to replace diesel power generation on the Kraken FPSO.

The firm has been seeking solutions to decarbonise Kraken, which it said in 2022 was “almost impossible to electrify”."

They were often talking about Bressay gas when Xcite were trying to get Bentley going.

*WW is using the pseudonym Ryan Crighton

Something that could be checked. Was any work done on the EnQuest Producer that might give a few clues?

KO - if Bressay gets the green light then I think Labour would not block it. It is a high-bar to get past though. Get that and we are off to the races.

Hi TWalbyoff - the numbers comment refers to my limited understanding of accounts (I still don't fully get decomm and investment allowance) but threw in the other comments because it gives perspective. Some weeks ago we were getting excited about M&A so these excellent figures won't do us any harm if negotiations are continuing. I'd hate for us to be looking for partners out of desperation although the cliff edge for the basin is still there.

Not sure what to make of this in the RNS - "Leadership team and Board refreshed – focused on the exciting next phase of EnQuest’s journey." Why refresh when they've done so well and the replacements do look like they've come off the subs bench?

You don't want my comments on numbers although I do like the 2024 guidance and 2023 wasn't bad. We are handling natural declines better that Spirit (Centrica RNS today) "Total volumes from the retained Spirit Energy assets were down 15%, with lower production across the portfolio in line with expected natural decline rates. "

and Ithaca threw this into there trading update today "- Reflects a reduction in planned activity in the year as a direct result of the Energy Profits Levy"

What you're both missing is the collusion of the Tory Party in this. Labour haven't won yet but the economic conditions are hardly much better under the Tories. The cliff edge is there whoever is in power. March CfD auction preliminaries begin and could bring this to a head. You are not comparing like-with-likw when you use Norway to support your argument as the article Modestus linked to says.

Centrica too

Ithaca trading update tomorrow.

Save this https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/campaigning-election/online-campaigning/claims-made-online-political-ads

If you find anything interesting and it is purely propaganda not backed by facts then post here and inform the authorities.

We'll probably be contacting these people https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/contact-us/

The media, political parties, lobbyists and advertisers are going to be up to all sort of games in the coming months. I don't know where they'll act but there is an easy way to find out by contacting them with cases.

Headline - Tory Donor guilty of price gouging

Labour have exposed another example of Tory profiteering. Ernie (a Tory supporter) was caught selling a dozen red roses from his flower stall in Kensington at £75 a bunch yesterday and again today. Under Labour and starting tomorrow we will be selling the same roses at £10 a bunch. Fully 7.50 times cheaper than Tory roses.

All our roses are organic and grown in natural b*llsh*t

Hi Andre - thanks for that but I'm not sure it helps. There is (I believe) also the FTSE small cap market. I cannot see either why being added to an index is a positive when we are touching an all time low. Maybe all the MSCI is that we've moved down from one index to the MSCI micro cap? I'm guessing here but I imagine the MSCI micro cap requirements are lower than their small cap.

I'm open to being educated.

Hi KO - Natural gas is at a 10 year low. We know its connection to electricity prices for when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow. With the leads and lags this eventually filters into lower prices, certainly before the election. The growth of wind generation has continued increasing, so as it is many times cheaper than gas (according to Labour) we will have much cheaper electricity after all, Labour made a statement about its multiple times cheaper than gas.

The crisis in prices of mid 2022 impacted our bills between March and June 2023 but the price crisis in gas had abated by the beginning of 2023 so I think we can say we are back to the pre Ukraine invasion level but without Russian gas which we never really had anyway. With all the promises of renewables we can expect cheaper electricity and as gas is affected by world prices; cheaper gas too.

In February 2022 my electricity was 19.867 kWh and gas 3.862 kWh

My bill for 1st January 2024 had

electricity 26.60 kWh and gas 6.46 kWh

That means my electricity is now 33% higher than 2 years ago and my gas is 67% higher.

More worrying is that the first rise for 6 months appeared in my 19 Jan 2024 statement. electricity kWh 27.82 + 4.5% and gas kWh 6.96 +7.7%

Of course we've had inflation and supply chain problems but the public only want one thing. Cheap energy which they were promised. There will be a battleground around the next CfD auction (AR6) which starts preliminaries in March. The public are unaware of the subsidies renewables receive. Without them they fail. The Labour maagical money tree needs to be exposed.

he wouldn't be playing it. the media, conspi******s and competing politicians might though. and we know how keir avoids decisions. better to just not consider it.

The latest wobble with Labour regarding the Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali has me concerned. It might save Ed Miliband's career in Energy and let him carry on with his climate crusade. My reasoning is that any attempt to remove him from the post might be interpreted as anti-semitism.

The truth is that he deserves to go for his incompetence, lies and manipulation of facts. It has nothing to do with his religion. However, it is a card that can be played if they tried to sack or remove him from the post. We know how single-minded and ambitious Keir Starmer is on being our glorious leader and he'll stop at nothing to achieve it. I think we're stuck with Ed. Not because he's the man for the job but that Labour and Keir can't risk removing him.

Regards this Petrofac Bond https://www.ft.com/content/5a76f345-5e28-4f72-9246-6569c4ffe3d9

I don't know about any others but there is a YTM of nearly 50% here. That signifies a company in trouble but EnQuest reached 12 I think on the old retail bond and the HYN wouldn't have been far away either. All are healthy now and around 95ish. Before anybody says 95 isn't healthy I'd just like to say that AB doesn't control international interest rates. We're pretty secure here I think.

Hi M - I loosely follow PFC because AB once worked there and EnQuest was once part of PFC. The bribery scandal that befell PFC did worry me for a while because you don't know who might be drawn in. We've moved on from that and following your post I just read the last few chats on PFC. At 12:47 a poster says it appears that PFC will be deleted from the small cap index at the end of the month. We also had KO mention the same for EnQuest at 11:19.

I don't follow this index and finding the information on who is entering and exiting hasn't been simple and I've failed. Any guides appreciated and assuming KO is right then this helps explain the sudden drop yesterday. In fact it was a double whammy (+OEUK news release) and we were resilient which makes me more confident that this really is the bottom.

Some funds may well have in their mandates that they have to SELL when companies exit or are not allowed to BUY until they are in an index. Pointless commenting really. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it will affect our shareholding list.

Regards the shorts - hedge funds hunt in packs and the amount isn't that huge for hedge funds even if they get it right. They don't always get it right and my two biggest wins have been in stocks that were heavily shorted.

Unlikely but I wonder if there is any future JV between EnQuest, Petrofac and Veri? I'm sure there is a lot of talent still at PFC and contacts and infrastructure dosn't disappear overnight.

Https://oeuk.org.uk/labours-new-windfall-tax-plan-sparks-job-loss-warning/

I'll repeat the final sentence. "This announcement was made without engagement with the industry."

Nuff' said. Looks like the industry is playing hardball back. It is generally not advisable to take on the government (or the next government). If you cannot trust the negotiator or the negotiator is acting in bad faith then your options are limited. It is actually a step forward that the O&G industry is taking the fight public.