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I was not suggesting winding the company down was preferred or even likely. Just that it might be an option on the table now. If they haven't found anything to invest in so far maybe they won't going forward.
Management are going to have to pull their fingers out now though if they want those incentive plan awards because the share price is now even lower than it was when they were handed out.
You could be right that investment will leave the UK. Yes there will still be lots of it going on in the NS no doubt, but if it stays level or falls then tax has been a complete failure and counterproductive.
NE now even more crucial to future of the company. If it doesn't come in then are we looking at the end of the company? What else will they do? Perhaps there will be some nice acquisition targets that come up in the new environment, anything can happen. Maybe it would make sense to wind down the assets? Distributing all free cash flow to shareholders via dividends. If that happens, great work Rishi... not.
You do however feel that this tax doesn't help energy prices come down. It surely makes them go up, perhaps Serica end up making even more money than they otherwise would have. No idea.
It's got to be hasn't it lol. Not that it'll get in to production any time soon but at least the NAV of Serica would improve and it would be a valuable asset to have on the books.
The tax will be permanent because energy prices will never fall. Low energy density, expensive renewables will be made cost competitive by how expensive traditional fossil energy will become.
No one would want to hear it. Same as they wouldn't want to hear what I had to say previously. It's been a value trap for a long time.
I would say people's inability to understand free cash flow from profit and crucially the windfall tax (WHICH IS COMING) have dragged this down. Once we find out how onerous (and ridiculous) the windfall tax will be, we'll have that certainty at least and can re-rate. The issue is likely staying Seria's hand too regarding M&A/dividends/buybacks etc. How are you supposed to plan ahead when you don't know how much tax you are going to be paying and what other kinds of BS terms you'll have to comply with?
I should add that a buyback right now wouldn't be bad, I just don't think given current reserve life that it's the very best thing to do RIGHT NOW.
Would a buy back really be the best option right now? Buy backs make the most sense when you have long reserve life left AND a low stock price. Without long reserve life you are buying back shares in a business that may not exist. Yes they aren't running out in the next couple of years so not as much of an issue as if they had say 4 years of reserves or something.
If NE comes in then that's a different matter, but will the share price be so low after that? Probably not. Dividends and M&A/organic growth make the most sense at this point in time if you ask me.
It's just a matter of time before another vote or government just doing it anyway. The social license for it is being created by the media. Of course no mention of how many companies went bust and how much money was lost during the covid lows for oil prices and how that damaged investment. No we want to press for investment to be damaged again via high taxes. Do we want cripplingly high energy prices to stay? Some would say that yes, certain parties do and in my opinion that is partly what ESG and renewables is all about. Making everything much more expensive and scarce so as to reduce consumption/mobility etc, particularly in the West.
So in short, windfall taxes will come, and probably stay (justified by high energy prices never going away) forever. They are also talking about windfall taxing power generation companies too. How is that going to help bills? Better get used to it and plan/invest accordingly.
People are probably also fearing the Windfall tax, which is all but a done deal at this stage. It won't matter if some companies do invest their profits, as long as a few don't that'll be enough for the 'social license' to do it to be drummed up. It's coming unfortunately. We don't know the details yet, maybe it'll just be another 5-10% on top of the 40% already paid. Egregious level of taxation yes but it won't be the end of the world, not with the amount of cash companies are generating. What it will do however, is actually reduce investment and make the supply situation worse and thus prices higher. There will be ways to massage your profits too so as to limit the amount of tax payable.
If it does get in, it also won't be a one time tax, it will stay.
I don't think Joe Bloggs retail investor has any idea how much cash this company is making. Also this stock is on the AIM which is full of fecking traders. People cannot hold a stock for more than 10 minutes these days.
AIM really is an awful market. I agree.
NewKOTB, I wonder if the NE drill can be good news REGARDLESS of the result. On success case, great more gas, pretty obvious. If it fails, they'd obviously have lost the drilling costs and ALSO would they perhaps be able to write down the value of asset against profits? Is that possible?
Soder, it's highly likely they will do a windfall tax in some form. The rhetoric is changing from 'No', to 'Possibly if blah blah'. This tells you that they are going to do it at some point.
It shouldn't be difficult considering average gas price for them was 113p/therm in 2021.
And yes, always look at the cashflow statement. Increase/decrease in cash. Serica are absolutely raking it in. This year they may well rake it more than 2021 too, assuming gas prices hold and they don't overspend on drilling NE.
Yes they are going to windfall tax O&G and maybe other extractive industries (when they start making money) and just make things worse. It's just a matter of time before it happens, probably globally (more or less) too.
Getting absolutely killed here today. Only have a small position here but annoying nonetheless. This fall doesn't seem justified on fundamentals. Yes NBP futures have been dropping but pricing is still very robust and will likely increase coming up to winter later in the year. I am contemplating a top up here. Great value down here.
*keeping the lights on gas (not "It's light on gas" as I wrote)
Yes I do. Please combat what I am saying regarding FCF rather than just offer pathetic ad hominem attacks>
The recent SD drill was targeting reserves of 7bcf. This is something like 150 days of production at 45mmcf/d. It's light on gas, that's it. It's not a GREAT discovery. It's bottom of the barrel stuff and it's not even all theirs given they reduced their stake in SD. They previously said several years ago I think that they wouldn't drill for anything less than 10bcf. They are either desperate or economics are slightly better with more partners, don't know.
You call me a deramper but if you were unbiased why aren't you calling out the person who was proclaiming record high gas prices in europe somehow being good for SDX??? All SDX's gas in consumed internally in Egypt AND SDX only get a fixed price for the gas so European pricing is completely irrelevant. Instead you choose to bash my perfectly reasonable statement that this company makes no free cash flow, yes lots of operating cashflow but that isn't what counts. It's free cash flow and replacing/increasing reserves and this company doesn't do either of these things.