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@Tacuma - like the sound of a champagne SP!

Think we will def have one piece of news before then - Wressle appeal - has a latest publish date of Feb. (Of course we are all hoping for Inishkea before April as well!) But agree with basic sentiment that this goes down consistently without news on very little trading volume.

On a rough estimate some 8-9 million more shares were bought than sold over Xmas/New Year without share price moving until today’s announcement. Wondering if that is over half of the ex-CEOs remaining holding gone and whether a very big background sale will eventually turn up? Good progress if so in removing that overhang.

I agree. While the delay is frustrating I can’t see that we can read anything negative into it - it’s just the bureaucracy. They were pretty quick to announce the rejection of our appeal last time!

Anthony, where does the Feb date for Wressle come from? I thought they were meant to give a ruling in 6 weeks from end of inquiry - may be extended a little this time because of election. Still can’t understand what the delay is in publishing results - unless perhaps it requires Secretary of State approval because they are thinking “designating” Wressle planning decisions for future - ie taking it out of county council planning processes.

Thanks for the response, Anthony. I can see a buy has just gone through. Perhaps it’s just my broker than as I still can’t buy.

Can still sell any number of these shares I want at 2.58, but can’t buy any on line. This is a recurring pattern over last few days. Anyone else getting this? Anyone know why this happens - don’t understand why the price just doesn’t rise to accommodate?

@Tac - it’s showing showing up elsewhere now. Think the detail of the trading prices etc seems a bit haywire at present for some unexplained reason. Still the overall direction is right, which is all that really matters!

Agreed. And it is still impossible to buy at the price being quoted, not sure why the SP on line isn’t being allowed to find its buy/sell level - seems to have been this pattern of being able to sell but not easy to buy for most of past two weeks.

Thanks for comments. Personally think Hugh could simply have thought his time was up. For years he has been flagging up 2019 as the year Ireland would happen big time (Inishkea, Iolar, multiple Providence drills). Hasn’t turned out that way, and while I think there could still be a lot of value in key assets, its not a “Big Bang” with multiple company makers now going all at full tilt! So if that was his dream, then time to hand over to someone else fresh. Nothing more to do on Wressle, hopefully Inishkea is being taken over the line by just as qualified Directors with their own gas expertise, and Morocco is underway. So why stay on for more years?
Just an alternative explanation to the he was pushed/done a runner/conspiracy explanations.

In the hope that we will very shortly get the Wressle decision and that this may bring some potential investors to this B.B., thought it might be useful to do a brief summary of where EOG is at - all IMO and DYOR etc of course and would welcome anyone else’s comments on where I may have got things wrong or left stuff out.

EOG is currently a producer of c90 bopd which brings in about £1.7m a year at present and this roughly covers our overheads. Wressle will add c150 bopd to that and if permission gets granted is scheduled to start producing in the summer. This will probably add some £3m to revenue. So if EOG stays cost wise, this should all be available for additional ops or acquisitions. A nice income stream and not bad for a small company!

EOG has a lot of assets in Ireland. The “flagship” asset Inishkea is a gas prospect near the current producing Corrib site. Irish Gov has just issued new policy document stressing the need to secure Irish gas energy supplies for next 20+ years and Inishkea could be just the answer. Waiting decision on farmin to asset - been lined up for a year with a major, but now talking more widely with interested parties. Company seems to have stopped marketing the asset and there seems to be confidence that a farmin is imminent or at least very likely over next couple of months. This could be very big for EOG - and if it happens would lead to likely drill in 2021 (cos given as 30%). Site survey permission is winding its way slowly through Gov system, but almost there. Not clear where other potential oil assets are headed - may go nowhere or become valuable niche assets as they will be the exception in having licences in place which are excluded from new Irish oil exploration ban.

Have recently acquired large Moroccan offshore licence and have started an 18 month data collection and reprocessing cycle to identify a prospect inventory there. Long term prospect.

CEO recently resigned, but still working until end of year and doing conference presentations etc, so seems to be amicable. Company signalling change in approach to balance long term exploration with more short term appraisal/development opportunities. Have been looking at these for a while, yet to see what comes up.

Funding. Last accounts showed c£3m in the bank. Large raise last year a lot of which was earmarked for Irish surveys which now won’t happen before mid 2020 (if they all still happen). So barring something really unexpected no likely funding shortfalls and could be comparatively cash rich.

I think so - it will have to appear on the site before the 21 day time clock starts. From memory EOG took about 6 weeks last time to respond to requests for more information - I don't know what's a reasonable length of time - they were asked an incredibly long list of questions this time if you look at the document, so it may take some preparation. Still I would like to see it go in before the end of the year, otherwise the process will drag on for ever and they will have had time to invent another hoop to jump through. Perhaps getting this done is what Hugh has stayed on for?!

Finally have the Irish Gov policy statement on oil and gas exploration. Looks pretty much as expected, with a reference to reviewing the efficiency of current application processes, which I take to mean they will try to simplify. Hopefully this now being issued will remove some of the uncertainty that may been holding up the Inishkea decision.

Also see that DCCAE today have approved the EIA elements of our current applications for surveys, only piece missing now is the EOG response to the AA questions put to them in early Nov.

Just noting that we’ve had 4 days in a row of steady rises in SP. in fact ever since OTF complained about the constant falls, the price has risen. So OTF if you could complain every week for the next month we might end up with a decent SP!

Also good that the price rises are likely linked to real news expectation - hopefully Wressle very shortly, followed soon after by farmout news on Inishkea. And wouldn’t it be nice if the Directors could turn up something of immediate interest in all their development/appraisal research. We might suddenly find ourselves with a lot going on of wider interest.

Very hard to get a quote on line for buying more than very small amount of shares. Was the same for long periods yesterday. Yet the MMs don’t seem willing to raise the bid price to increase the flow of shares. Anyone understand what could be the reasons for this, as it seems to be limiting share turnover?

As well as the GE result we could get the Wressle appeal result tomorrow or sometime next week. Can’t see why the planning inspector would want to delay it further, was a short hearing and there should have been plenty of time to write it up as he has now had the usual 6 weeks to complete.

Thanks for the detail, Anthony. A positive outcome on Wressle and Inishkea would put us on a different footing, so here’s hoping. I am pleased to hear the positive tone, although think we will be waiting a bit longer for the farmin if it is dependent on the survey approval. We still haven’t replied to the request for more info in November, and so may still take a couple of months to complete the whole process.

Thanks for reporting back Anthony.

Was anything more said about a new CEO or their change in focus on to more appraisal and development work?

Agreed with Inishkea but on the same theme is it “oven ready” or “half baked”?

Amnesic, much appreciated you taking the time to update us especially after a long day . I realise that you can only give your view but did you get any sense of whether we had a realistic picture of where things were from the previous ceo or has CP had to do a lot more of the ground work than expected? I think I prefer that he is focusing on getting something done than writing endless presentations but was there any talk of a formal update because since he has taken over it’s all been informal word of mouth - some of which (several announcements expected before agm) has been unreliable. Even the extension of his role hasn’t been announced in any way and I see on the other board that people are talking again of more news over the next 2 months. Hard to work out exactly where CP is starting from.