Member Info for Scott22

If you follow XM FB page he follows Energy Ministry closely and positively and documents important ministry activities and also all interactions of PB and himself with minister Minister Young. Last year Minister Young toured all the major TXP sites and had direct education from XM. XM asked him if he would be present for first gas. There are lots of photos of interactions of TXP employees (including PB and XM) including informal photos from that extended tour of facilities last year. XM attitude always totally positive. Touchstone social media also has a lot of information. Any discussions with energy ministry, even difficult ones, always mutually respectful. Paul and especially
XM have deep understanding of Trinidad and Tobago and the perspective of the government and they are happy to work with someone who understands importance of energy to economy and want strong role for Trinidad (with economic benefit) during energy transition. This is news report of other interaction with Minister young also posted by XM. XM is very straightforward. You could ask him if he has good relationship with zminoster Young and Inbelieve he would say yes, and mean it. He knows it is an important relationship. So does Paul. Minister Young mentions TXP almost every time he talks about important projects coming on line in Trinidad.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid07N3git19WAvqV7NRRWVHS2TxRxfaUV8GTjU5eNzGUGorFfTsyrPM3E9fL9dayBw7l&id=505464411

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid07N3git19WAvqV7NRRWVHS2TxRxfaUV8GTjU5eNzGUGorFfTsyrPM3E9fL9dayBw7l&id=505464411

Paul and XM have a good relationship with Stuart Young.

johnxxxx: The next operations update will also hopefully have a progress report on Cascadura. The pipeline is VERY short and NGC can put it in place in 4-6 weeks. The facilities at Cascadura pad are more complex because it is liquids rich gas and that value stream has to be separated. But the company has been on a parallel path and the big ticket long lead time items have been constructed in Canada, brought by rail to Houston, shipped to Trinidad, and Trucked to Rio Clara.Give TXP credit for that. All the other parts and the expertise to put it together are readily available on Trinidad. Cascadura projects may come together very quickly.

Minister Young has commented on Twitter that Coho will be on line “within days.”. Which means no remedial work to be done and documentation is in order.

He gave a great speech to Parliament about the state of energy sector in TT. Very interesting. Hopefully things will get smoother and TXP can play important role in TT energy future. The relationship of PB and XM with Minister Young is important and has alway been respectful, cordial, mutually supportive. That is a good thing.

Speech is available on Trinidad Minister of Energy FB page.
https://www.facebook.com/TTMEEI

Despite all the admonition that it is market cap and not share count that matters, I still find that having billions of shares makes it hard to go up a penny, but very easy to go down a penny. Or multiples of same.

smasher: agree that they should present some analysis (like Trin did) of impact of proposed changes. But I can see waiting until changes accepted and details fleshed out.

As for Coho it has been totally frustrating with lots of delays due to external factors and likely some self inflicted wounds too. But I am not sure better communication about all of he problems as they were unfolding would have been all hat helpful. I guess we had some worries about the well not being okay that were unfounded. And now we have some worries about the infrastructure not being okay, though Paul tried to reassure us that it was only checking of serial numbers on valves and other documentation steps, and that NGC and Shell had signed off on everything before this additional safety check was added. So would it help if Paul said everyday the infrastructure was fine. And would that prevent safety checker from actually finding something that needed fixing? Isn’t that why they check?

I do not mind people telling us they are leaving. Or that they left today or yesterday. But when someone says -“I started selling at a pound and I sold the last little bit today”, that is just a little harder to be totally confidant of. However I generally choose to believe the poster and congratulate them on their foresight. (why not as nothing on message board is verified). But why does no one ever post that “I started selling at one pound and I sold the last few shares when it hit 2 pounds”. Especially after the shares have breached 3 pounds. If I ever see such a post I will send a sympathy card. (I have done that by the way, it called an investing lesson). Not done that with TXP however. Holding my TXP shares, have never sold any. Next 6 months will be pretty important. They need cash flow to do some development drilling and resume exploration. They need a continuous drilling program. At that will take a wall of cash, not a mountain of cash, but a little wall of cash. I still improbably believe the story and I still believe we are in an early chapter. But this chapter is a debbie downer and it has dragging on a very long time (let’s call it : Ortoire Production Begins and Funds Resumption of Drilling After Long Pause). In fact this chapter has been so frustrating and poorly written that it is not too shocking that very few people want to buy the book right now.

TXP is not only issue under pressure. In fact I am struggling to find one issue that is not. TXP is actually holding up fairly well against the broader market and especially against the sector.

TXP won't even own any of the actual pipeline or the connections to Shell plant once it passes to the NGC. All they will own is the equiptment at the Coho well pad and the connection to the pipeline on that end. Maybe that is why they are looking at it closely because the NGC assumes ownership of almost all of it.

Trek Madone: Your comments about Zephyr proved pretty timely. Their non-operated Bakken assets delivered more than expected so market gave them a boost while waiting to see of their new well will be good and quickly put into production. Sort of like a pre-production company with some cash flow on the side to provide some capital. (and avoidIn a way that has been the TXP story. Pre-production on Ortoire but some legacy assets with cash flow. But TXP is trying to grow so fast they need the cash flow from early Ortoire success to keep motoring.

That is the one to listen to - interesting and not totally softball promotion.

At one point she is pressing him on saying out loud there will not be a discovery in 2022. Then she softens a little and says:

"I can't be mean to you about that though I must admit I am thinking of ways to do so."

It is pretty informative interview and well worth listening to. About 14 minutes.

https://total-market-solutions.com/2022/09/helium-one-september-2022/

Thanks Trek, good comments. I think TXP is a good buy under a pound too. I might add a tidge to get to a round number in one account. Otherwise will just hold. Interesting that the pence is getting pretty close to US penny. Pound was at US$1.14 on Saturday. Lowest exchange rate since US$1.12 on February 8, 1985. Has been sliding for months. In fact the high water was US$ 2.03 for a pound on December 7, 2007 and it has been a pretty long slide since then (with some ups and downs along the way but nothing to interrupt the trend.

Right now I am pretty much pausing on adding more shares in the microcap space, though I haven't sold anything. I have the right amount invested there . I like the picks and positions I have and want to watch things play out. I have become enamored with CVE ( a whole different deal) and all my new money is going there. Pretty amazing financial metrics (massive free cash flow right now) and price is cheap. Being held back by low dividend but that is about to change. Best to all.

Offshore to west, shallow water. DeNovo (german company) bought rights and spent $52 million in 31 months to build offshore production platform to bring on line 40 million cf/day. The original discovery wells were in 2007. They are producing one well. Compare that to Cascadura where it will cost less than $50 million to bring on line 200 million per day.
That includes the three wells already drilled (10-15 million already spent) , the facilities which will be about $10 million ($5 million already spent on fabricating big long lead time items like the separators) and the 6-8 development wells including the roads and two new drill pads and connections to the facilities at the main cascadura site. A 300 mmcf/day project is a big deal. Cascadura is certainly worth several times current market cap. At least I think so.

Thanks for all the comments. I would like to follow Trek Madone’s intuition and grab 10,000 shares despite my misgivings, just to follow the story with more interest. But there are some barriers - it doesn’t really trade OTC in US so have to go through Schwab international desk and pay $50 per trade plus AIM fee. And I am a bit worried by 1.5 billion shares, by their initial plan to use the gas to power a crypto mining operation on the desert, by the fact that those empty pipeline were empty from because the wells they were supposed to serve stopped flowing. They are drilling some new wells soon (.on prior well sites) and if they work well this could be a good buy. I am kind of embarrassed to report that hydraulic fracking is the exact same thing as fracking. So it is even less clear to me why they think their fracking technique will work while prior fracking attempts did not work. This next well has a 10,000 foot lateral (I think I read that anyway, not totally sure. If this is a prolific long lasting well Zephyr shares could move up smartly. Would like to join the party - will decide on Monday depending on how much hassle it is and maybe my mood. It is a wild west AIM or Vancouver Venture kind of deal.

Ezhik: ZPHR interesting. The geology of the paradox basin is very interesting. There are multiple stacked pay zones. But these layers are interspersed in salt (oil is salt sandwhiches). That makes a good seal but in past it has been difficult to get the wells to flow. I lost heavily in DPTR (Delta Petroleum) who has those acres a decade ago and drilled some wells that were successful initially but quickly petered out and wouldn't flow any more. Those were horizontal wells with conventional fraking which seemed to harm the intervals. They went belly up. ZPHR drilled a lateral into one of the zones that DPTR did, but used a hydraulic fracture method. They had pretty good flow but I have never seen long term production testing. If these zones have commercial production with reasonabl;e flow decline then this area has HUGE amount of resource. I just already lost huge on these acres and I do not know enough about drilling to understand why hydraulic fracking will turn out while regular fracking did not work. I have been tempted. I have a perverse interest in the geology and the ownership of the acres but I haven't bought any. Would be painful to lose twice on same play. BUT if thye do crack the nut and can produce that basin it really could be the next big unconventional basin, just one that couldn't be produced with the standard tools. I would love to get any input from someone with more knowledge of oil embedded in salt formations and also knowledge about the details of hydraulic fracking versus standard fracking with tons of sand under high pressure. Hydraulic fracking can't equal standard fracking under most conditions or why would they bother with all the sand. Just my simple analysis based on no deep knowledge.

skippysb01: I think the concept of derisking has to be really stretched to apply it to a losing position. That is called bailing out and trying to preserve some capital. I guess it could be called derisking in a different sense if you sell all of your shares and avoid a catastrophe, but it sure does not derisk any remaining stake, which is the whole idea. It puts that stake even more underwater and even less likely to ever surface.

Must admit time is going by faster than any visible progress on the equipment front. Agree with others that if soemthing does not happen soon it is a spring of 2023 event.

inthevoid: I agree that "derisking" now on a two pence move is more likely to be regrettable than to prove prescient. Especially in US where spread can be wide. How can one ever get a big winner if they celebrate capturing a part of a two pence move while the major issues in play (drilling another well and making a commercial discovery) are yet to unfold. Now if He! doubled on soft news and I had oodles of shares for one pence and I wanted to play from here on house money, well who could argue that. That that is not the current situation or my situation.

The confusing part is that the 440 feet still to be tested at Cascadura deep are all in the intermediate sheet. They have never even gotten to the subthrust or “deep” sands. That is because they encountered extremely high pressures, almost lost control of well, and did not want to risk losing it altogether. There was no way to extend it to its planned target. I think they should have just renamed the well Cascadura 2. But it is a bit late for that and would make it even more confusing. Anyway, It is a highly prolific well, our best at this moment.

Listen to it. It is great. Answers a lot of questions. Paul very effective.

Coho delayed because the energy department wanted an additional safety analysis, in part because the well highly pressurized and they do not want to risk anything that might be safety concern. In other words well delayed because it is powerful. A lot better than the well bore is injured and hardly flowing, would not you say.

ab76: your latest blog piece is thoughtful, carefully researched, well reasoned and well written. I’ll be sure to follow your analyses. Thanks for the link.