Member Info for rossannan

petersalkeld

One well maybe - CERP’s own figures are $2-4million per SWP exploration well. But that assumes no further cash burn between now and mid-2019. I think that would be an incorrect assumption.

Bamps21

Time will tell whose skepticism is misplaced, yours about TRIN or mine about CERP. If you look carefully at TRIN you will see that no rainbow chasing is involved. I don’t think you can say the same about CERP. In theory there is a bigger pot of gold at the end of (the current draft of) CERP’s road map than there is at the end of TRIN’s road map. In practice that may not be the case - LK needs to start delivering on the rosy scenarios that he has been painting. He certainly didn’t deliver on Goudron. The balance of risk and reward offered by CERP just doesn’t work for me at the current share price. The funding needed to explore the SWP is not being generated organically. Something has to give. Either LK will tap into the remainder of the LIND facility or Q1 2019 will see more shares issued. At that point I will have another look. I sold all my TXP at 19p last month so have room once more for extra T&T exposure, albeit that I am hugely overweight in TRIN.

LGO-fan

Another response to skeptical posters might be to address the points that they raise.

Vmax

Look at the chart and tell me that over the last twelve months a skeptical take has been misplaced.

Scarface72

TRIN.

Bamps21

“LK has repeatedly stated the SWP will be funded from cash flow”

LK says a lot, and you have to distinguish the aspirational from the informational. Almost everything he said about Goudron turned out to be aspirational rather than informational. It looks very unlikely that the SWP will be funded from cash flow. Time will tell.

RustinCohle

Haven’t had a position in CERP, long or short, for over a year. I sold because I thought 6.6p was high enough. It did go a bit higher, but there you go. I would certainly consider buying back in at the right price if I thought that LK was on top of the cash burn and there was funding in place for at least the initial shallower SWP wells. I don’t think BB posts have any traction these days. Maybe onceatrader’s Pied Piper routine had some traction, back in the day, but that was then and this is now. I only spend minutes on here on any given day - I am basically saying the same thing every time, after all! I could spend longer on here and discuss all the aspirational scenarios that LK trots out in his medias, but looking at LK’s track record to date I prefer to take that kind of stuff a big pinch of salt these days and focus on, and extrapolate from, only confirmed figures - which is why I am particularly frustrated by what LK did with the Q3 figures.

steward1

With one well in the SWP apparently costing $2-4million, those additional funds haven’t taken him very far. LIND facility while it is still available or a bigger raise ahead of the first SWP drill? Choose now.

faz7475

Am I evil?

Scarface72

The cash burn point bears repeating. Previously there was useful discussion on here of how the cash burn broke down and what items of expenditure would recur etc. Now folk are largely dodging the subject. This may in part be LK’s fault given the way that, as I explained, he used the Q3 update to muddy the waters . We will have to wait for the Q4 update to get a proper handle on the cash burn again. I suspect that it is still a significant problem and that LK would be better tapping the remainder of the LIND facility now than issuing more shares later. Time will tell. I am not saying that in this capital intensive industry it makes sense to sit with cash in the bank while production declines - cash has to be deployed - but you can’t stumble from one funding crisis to another - the market has to be able to see a turning point coming or it will punish you.

Bamps21

Whether folk want to hear it or not, it is the big issue here. If the cash burn is not under control, more shares will likely be issued down the line than would be otherwise. We were all set to get a clear picture of the Q3 cash burn last month but LK muddied the waters by consolidating Steeldrum into the Q3 figures. Fair enough in a sense given the effective date of the Steeldrum acquisition, but LK could easily have provided separate figures for the original business as well. He didn’t though. Is he hiding something? Not his finest hour.

faz7475

Talking of investments, if you also like dachshunds, you will love this:

https://flappyshirt.com/master-of-puppies-dachshund?s=hanes-5250&c=Black&p=FRONT

offerman

I don’t think SQZ is a great comparison. SQZ certainly demonstrates that anything is possible in theory, but SQZ kept a pristine balance sheet - cash was generated rather than burned - and that may be one reason why BP saw them as a credible candidate for the transformative BKR deal. I first started buying SQZ at just under 10p, cashed out at 57p but bought back in in the 60s when I thought folk were being too pessimistic about sanctions. Unfortunately I sold up at 95p ahead of the decision on sanctions - this did eventually go Serica’s way but it was all beginning to look just too binary for me. I am struggling to see why anyone would offer CERP a transformative BKR type deal given how little CERP has in the bank. Fairly fed up with the “big deal” chat which is keeping PIs on the hook here. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Garnhiem.

Saying I think that the turning point here might be sub-3p does not contravene that rule - if it did, the the traditional 10p by Christmas posts would also contravene it. I am clearly just expressing an opinion that may well turn out to be wrong - the turning point may after all turn out to be sub-2p!

Really? Because I said that I thought the turning point here might be sub-3p?

Bamps21

Not my questions, or not recently anyway.

bigmj

LK may indeed take CERP to many multiples of its current MCAP but in such a capital intensive industry it will be much, much harder to take it to many multiples of its current SP.

Bamps21

I gave up emailing them because they stopped responding. The consolidation of Steeldrum into the Q3 figures has, I would suggest, been used to disguise the cash burn in the original business. I don’t think my worries are misplaced.

offerman

If I had a pound for every time that I have answered that question on here I could afford to buy in now and wouldn’t have to wait for sub-3p!

Seriously though, if you filter the more skeptical posters on here and on ADVFN you will be left listening only to rampers like Edgein etc. For me, all the ramping indicates that there are still too many folk around who are looking to make money on the back of PIs going mad for the CERP story en masse rather than on the back of real progress towards profitability. And anyone who says that at this stage it is all about growth rather than profitability is really just saying “dilute me”.

I would argue that the trick is to wait for a genuine turning point. LK did provide one last year, but if you look at how badly wrong his end 2017 take on Goudron turned out to be, you can see why the share price chart now looks like it does. Fair play to LK - he has regrouped and 2019 could see another turning point. I just don’t see the need to pile in at this stage though, for all that the rampers bang on about deals that may or may not be in the offing. I want to see how the cash is flowing so that I can gauge the likelihood (arguably high) of another raise ahead of the SWP campaign kicking off in mid-2019.

It turned out that I was right to be skeptical about Spain. Consider the possibility that I might be right about cash burn too.

“The SWP of Trinidad is located in a geological setting which is continuous with the Eastern Venezuelan hydrocarbon basin. This petroleum province has delivered copious reserves which Columbus aims to pursue in this underexplored onshore extension of the basin. A working petroleum system is in place in the SWP as evidenced by the shallow Bonasse and Icacos fields and continuity with the nearby offshore Soldado fields. Established Trinidad reservoir units are present including the deltaic reservoir sands in the Cruse, Forest and Morne L’Enfer formations and prospectively the deep Herrera formation. A combination of structural and stratigraphic traps have been
mapped with potential stacked vertical targets. This is a well-known system within Trinidad and lowers the risk associated with exploration drilling in the area.”

My question for those keen to ramp the SWP is what can CERP realistically expect from the Cruse, Forest and Morne L’Enfer formations and how long will it be and how much CAPEX will be required in the meantime before those initial SWP wells are throwing off enough money to fund even one deep well? I am not suggesting that the SWP will absorb as much cash for as little reward as Goudron, just trying to inject a bit of realism. A further raise or further use of the LIND facility before that first SWP well even spuds looks pretty likely to me, and could possibly provide a decent entry point.

Bamps21

If the cash burn continues in the meantime though, his options may be limited.