The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
Banana Joe,
You could be right the person tasked with the Sofitel booking may have failed to do so and another booking rearranged for 17th June. If so no big deal. More likely, an AGM in May would have left AB unable to give a report on the Q2 drilling. In mid June he can. What matters for all of us are they gushers or dusters. If the former fill your boots if you think the later then sell sell sell. The issue you raise and you have raised it before is both irritating and tiresome.
AB IS 581/2. Many of us still work full time 10 years later than that. If you enjoy work working into your 70's, 80's and 90's is not that unusual. He also has 2 children who may well go into the business in 7 or so years time. I think his game plan will be to have Enquest in 2 to 3 years producing at anything between 65 and 100 boepd and with gross debt no more than £500m and net debt at £250m. On reaching that point there will be profits divided into 3 portions. 1/3Rrd for Capex on existing projects, 1/3rd for new acquisitions, 1/6th for share buybacks and 1/6th for dividends. His foundation will want some income and AB for himself and his family and for the foundation will be wanting to increase his 5 share in the company without having to put his hand in his pocket. For AB'S ducks to all be in a row I have always taken a 5 year view. I have now been with Enquest for 37 months and I have consistently held the view and invested on the basis that the earliest date for 1st dividend is May 2024. Covid was pushing this further back rather guiltily I acknowledge that Putin has brought it forward.
Those of you who take the view of a 1st traunch sale at 59.9p are entitled to it AB would be arranging the sale of the whole company if that was all that could be achieved. by 2025 this could easily be priced at £2 plus. Keep the faith.
The lack of an OU and the moving of the AGM to 17th of June has to have an underlying reason. What we do know is that the 16 month update on Magnus started last September and finishes (if it runs to plan)in December. Significant topside work should be well on the way to completion. Secondly we know that 3 new wells are being drilled on Magnus now in Q2. My guess is that drilling is taking place presently and the OU will give the update on the performance of anything between one well drilled or possibly the results for all 3. I guess AB is of the view that a meaningful OU on this and the performance of the company as a whole will be unveiled at the AGM. We need to be patient these are exciting times.
The surprise rearrangement of the AGM must be deliberate for one of two reasons. Firstly there may be a deal in the offing or secondly and more likely there will be an announcement about Magnus. We know there are. New wells being drilled presently and a result announcement ent on the17th
Kwasi K has written to both Shell and BP about increased production of both oil and gas. He has also made it clear they have to increase output of green energies. Presumably wind and green hydrogen.
I would have thought AB is in a superb position on this. Firstly with the wells to be drilled iminantly at Magnus and Kraken to increase our production. My hunch is that AB has been very conservative in his estimates for the increase production that these will bring.
Secondly, I have since I invested here 3 years ago now that SVT is a sleeping giant. It is a 1000 acre site ideal for hydrogen high pressure storage tanks. Wind farms off North Shetland are not economic for connection to the national grid unless very very large but ideal for wind farms making hydrogen by electrolysis then to be transported for storage locally for hydrogen powered buses and taxis and possibly some trains and up to a 20% mix with natural gas supplies. But only producing 6.7% by calorific value. We also have e 340kilometres of gas and oil pipelines in the North Sea some of which could be used for CO2 transmission for storage in exhausted oil and gas wells. This need not be at Enquest’s cost but shouldered by the big boys.At SVT we might get some rent on the storage facilities. We are in an excellent position to help others and shine up our own green credentials.
Chilting, Romaron rumbled you first. As a technophile you know or ought to know the impossibility of doing away with oil. It is all very very difficult and consumes enormous amounts of energy eg green hydrogen. Until we have nuclear fusion in a jam jar oil will be the friend of global prosperity. Even if fusion becomes a practical reality there is still the 21% that goes into the production of plastics.
Londoner7, for Magnus I have currently 12k bold and am hoping for an additional 3kbopd announcement in q3. I am hoping this is conservative and perhaps 17kbopd might be achieved. I know nothing of the gas does anyone have a figure for it?
Londoner7 thank you so much for your posts today The reference to Magnus being the problem child made me intend to research back to 2018. You have saved me the time and effort for which I am very grateful.
On a wider point, I suspect that the lack of capex expenditure by Enquest since covid and our subsequent production decline, is similarly reflected across the whole oil and gas industry world wide as a result prices will remain high for sometime.
Fingers crossed the capex program on Magnus which runs for 16 months from September last year will bear fruit and we should get a significant update in q3.Remember AB has talked of 250m barrels of movable oil at Magnus, let’s hope a significant proportion is recoverable at economic cost.
LNG liquifies at -162 Celsius it takes a lot of energy to liquify it and transport it from Qatar or Texas to Grain or Milford Haven. Airbus are planning to evaluate with a redundant Air bus A380 fuelling it on liquid hydrogen. Liquifying hydrogen is very very difficult as it has to cooled to within 20 degrees of absolute zero (-273C) at -253C. They have to use a massive A380 because the cooling plant will be so heavy. It is really only practical to compress rather than liquefy hydrogen and the pressure vessel is very heavy. Initially the plan in UK is to cheat using blue hydrogen which as the US has shown serves no purpose due to the CO2 produce in manufacture. Green hydrogen by electrolysis is the only viable alternative for production.
Hydrogen and oxygen atoms are wholly different from the molecule water they produce and as we all know water is a very good stable molecule. The reason for this is that the hydrogen oxygen bonds in the molecule are very very strong, it therefore follows that it takes a lot of energy to convert water by electrolysis back to its component atoms. A wind farm of the SVT coupled with large hydrogen storage tanks on the 1000 acre terminal is possible but the hydrogen produce will only be enough for public transport and taxis. It could never be scaled up to meet all our transport and heating needs.
At SIPP Towers it’s one very large 34 year old boiler, an oil fired AGA for part of the hot water system electric storage radiators for the 2nd floor and an air source heat pump for the pool. On completing the census I took pleasure in ticking all 4 boxes for heating methods. My old energy supplier went bust last August and I had a £340.00 refund in October. I have yet to have an electricity or gas bill since last summer. Enquest has to do well to pay it!
I don’t care about Avenza’s statistics because they buy or sell at the direction of their members who may buy or sell for an infinite number of reasons which for the most part will not relate to Enquest. Our only concern is if Avenza advises its members that this is a strong sell. More likely after the Q1 results they will advise it is a strong buy. Sentiment to this share will/is changing fast. This share will Q1, H1 shoot up.
I do not own a single share in Enquest but at my direction and on my behalf my pension fund owns 1/2500 of the company. If another 74 individual SIPP holders did the same with the same pension envelope collectively we would own 3% of the company. RNS would follow. This would happen every time an individual SIPP holder bought or sold. Avenza is in exactly this position. Their buying and selling makes no sense if they are a single shareholder. They are just a facilitator for the instructions of their clients. These RNS may be ignored.
The positive of this that Avenza’s fund managers probably have us as a recommended buy and some of their members have taken that advice.
If the Kraken drill program goes to plan the FPSO will be at its capacity. Is AB holding back the EP for Bressay in 2023/4?
I am very grateful for all the very knowledgeable posts since Thursday the share price drop was inexplicable. Because oil apparently is worse for our health than Tabaco, our share languishes but patience will see us right in H2 or H1 2023
It was reported in yesterday's Times that London Stock Exchange Group which owns and runs the LSE is in discussions with the Financial Conduct Authority about setting up a special market that would allow shares in privately held companies to be traded by investors from time to time. Under the plan private company founders and others who invest early when a company is taken private to sell their shares to retail and institutional investors. This would encourage taking profitable small cap companies private. Such a scheme might only encourage AB to take Enquest private and day traders would sell all us longer term holders out. To my mind this proposal is bad, what are other views?
Again volumes high today over 2 days over 12m shares traded.
“BP and it’s partners “ could Enquest be 1 of them? A dal where we provide the fpso and manage it with contingent payments along the lines of the Magnus deal might make sense for both parties and avoid a share placement.
BP has filed its decommissioning plans for the fpso. Production ceased in April last year due to structural integrity problems with the fpso. When production ceased it was producing at 12,500 boepd and reserves were estimated at 200m barrels. Could this be a home for the EP?
L3Trader, thanks for your knowledgeable post. So The Magnus contingent payment is at about (40m at year end 2020 and I guess is down at about $910m at year end 2021. With appropriate capex in 22/23 surely some of the 250m barrels of movable oil or likely to be extractable? I guessed at 80%. What are your views or is AB's mention of this a red herring?
Romaron, Thanks for the invite and, prematurely, I had already nailed my colours to the mast at 32.8p. I take the glass half empty approach in view of past disappointments, but we should do much better than this. Tigar talks of 2 proximity wells on Kracken for 2023. AB has talked about developing the western flank at Kraken. I took AB to mean in 2022 rather than 23. Kraken, despite the recent 10 day hiccup is performing well and I believe still has 20 years of production. Why wait to develop the western flank? I have hazarded that the EP is at Nigg earmarked for the western flank. Why leave it mothballed incuring modest unrecoverable opex costs when it could be put to work? AB must have something in mind and if the 2 proximity wells are commercially viable I think that is where it will go.
Many here have poor predictions for Magnus but provided the 3 or is it just 2? wells drilled in the late spring summer are not dusters I would hope that each single well will produce in the 7.5-13.5 thousand boepd. Provided there are no capex overruns than Aloj's estimate might be on the low side and as an outlier I hope he wins. As a pessimist I stick at 32.8p