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.
Https://twitter.com/Hakingowi/status/1786059756521599133
That link on twitter yesterday shows LB meeting Minister of Mines Anthony Mauvunde at Parliament yesterday.
This tweet shows Anthony Mavunde addressing Parliament, also yesterday.
https://twitter.com/MadiniTanzania/status/1785887204276928942
And looking at that speech he is wearing the same clothes as in the picture with LB&Co, so the photo with LB was taken either immediately before or after he gave that speech to Parliament.
Which no doubt LB was watching from the rafters.
I don't think you get invited to watch budget meetings or speeches to Parliament, unless they involve you or your company somewhere along the line in a fairly intimate manner. I'm sceptical that Tz will put any significant money into helium at Rukwa, I suspect at this stage we are likely to go it alone, but I think they will "put in" in some form for Eyasi oil and gas, my thinking is that is what is in that 2024/5 budget. what form it takes I'm not sure, unlikely to be direct cash but supply of people, logistics, resources etc.
We'll supply the rig and expertise - that is where the rig purchase comes in, pity it nearly sunk the company.
And this is what Mavunde said to Parliament in his speech -
"Under the Presidents leadership in her three years starting from the seventh month (July) we are going to implement a project that will touch two large blocks, with an area of 165,574 square kilometers which is equal to 18 percent of the entire country (and) including the 16 percent that have already been measured (licensed) adding the 18 that we are starting the month seventh in total we will grow we have measured (licensed) 37 percent and today is the year 2024 the goal is to reach 50 percent (licensed) in 2030 we have 6 more years to reach this goal"
That was a translation of what Mavunde was saying to Parliament yesterday, when LB was present.
I wonder who is to get those two large blocks?
Surely not....?
Hold onto you hats!
I can't help but feel that offers are being made at present, but remain confidential.
Quite what will break it all out into the open I'm not sure.
Maybe frustration from the offeror(s), whoever they may be, if Curren and ROX are being uncooperative.
They may break cover, if they feel that it is the only way to gain access to this established team of designers/knowledge/talent.
Not quite - languages were never my strong point, much to my regret.
And I should point out that Noble says in the Quarterly Report that they have $1.8M on deposit with Marriot in relation to the rig, from which I have deduced they still have the rig. They don't actually say "we have the rig". There is a suggestion from another source however that the Marriot rig has left the country. Sentinel is insufficiently perfect to confirm one way or the other.
No doubt the Ilemba mystery will be revealed within the next couple of months. you can't keep a major drill programme completely under wraps for very long.
But it is a pity, don't you think that neither Noble or He1 is very forthcoming with future plans.
And we have to rely on Haki Ngowi "No1 News Personality" and "Social Media Influencer" for news of when we are going back to Itumbula for the EWT.
Not to belittle him, he clearly has high level contacts.
Twitter from yesterday....
https://twitter.com/Hakingowi/status/1786059756521599133
📍Bungeni,Dodoma
Waziri wa Madini, Mhe. Anthony Mavunde akizungumza na Ofisa Mtendaji Mkuu wa Helium One, Lorna Blaisse na Mkurugenzi wa Fedha na Biashara,Graham Jacobs wakifuatilia Bunge la Bajeti ya Wizara ya mwaka 2024/2025 lililopitishwa na Bunge. Helium One ilifikisha asilimia 4.7 ya heliamu kutoka kwenye kisima chao cha Itumbula Magharibi-1 mwezi Februari kilichopatikana kusini mwa Rukwa. Kampuni hiyo itaanza mwendelezo wa shughuli za majaribio ya kisima mwezi Julai.
Which translated means that well test activities will recommence at Itumbula W in July, presumably for the EWT.
Nobles latest quarterly report confirmed that they have retained the Marriot rig - I suspect it is at Mbelele-2 - and also that the area where the drill pads appear to be being built remains a licence application. The Marriot rig IMHO would not be needed for the shallow gas cap wells only going down a couple of hundred metres.
Another explanation for the apparent drill pad preparation is that it is oil or gas related by an unknown third party. Rukwa is covered by a so far as I am aware unissued oil licence which was relinquished by Heritage around 2019.
One would have thought Noble would have to release details of all their activities in the quarterly report.
So for the time being the mystery continues.
But both He1 and Noble each have a deep well capacity rig at Rukwa and both are very reluctant to reveal what they will be doing with them in 2024.
The drill season is upon us - time to reveal all.
And I'm sure all those meetings, and LB's two trips to Tz within a month aren't just for show.
Summat is going on.
But as always they'll need cash to execute
Part 1
Just formulating a few (more) thoughts on what appear to be a number of drill pads being constructed at Ilemba, within a licence area applied for by Noble.
Parts have already been put on here, but more thoughts spring to mind.
This is the evolution of the roadways and pads between last November to date
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53693795349/in/dateposted-public/
The first vehicles appeared in the area as long ago as 4-8-23, with the first parts of the roadway begun by 17-8-23. This date is interesting as the first vehicles at Mbelele-1 appeared on 8-7-23, with the pad outline completed by 27-8-23, with pad complete by 11-9-23.
For Mbelele-2 the first construction began around 7-8-23 with the pad largely completed by 21-10-23.
So initial construction at Ilamba has largely taken place at the same time, but more slowly, as M1 and M2. Once those pads were complete construction of the roadways appeared to speed up until interrupted by rains. It is not clear when construction recommenced but when clouds cleared it was clear that the I-1 pad was well underway, as shown here on 30-4-24
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53692564392/in/dateposted-public/
Judging by those earthworks the pad could be in a position to spud in around 6-8 weeks time ie the latter half of June 24. Questions abound - why so secret given the razzmatazz over M1 and M2? The TCMP shows the licences applied for but not yet granted? Why 4 potential pads, 1 of with is within the He1 licence area, if it is indeed to be a pad? Where has the equipment which was at Itumbula gone to? Is it now here? Why are these drilling plans so secret? Why the go slow on the build?
This shows the drill location in relation to the main fault suggesting that these could be deep wells, much deeper than M1 and M2.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53693963576/in/dateposted-public/
Part 2
And these are the potential drill locations in relation to Nobles declared plays and declared 2D and 3D seismic.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53693388527/in/dateposted-public/
According to the publicity they haven't done any seismic at all, but of course they must have, they simply haven't said so. Noble aren't usually so publicity shy. They say they are funded for their pilot plant and shallow wells at Mbelele, so who paid (is paying) for all the earthworks and movements at Ilamba? They are fundraising and possibly struggling at the moment, so you'd think they'd want to come clean here - oooh, look what were doing - but no, just silence. Very curious. and this is a map with a He1 AGG Gravity Survey added
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53693388747/in/dateposted-public/
Surprise! All the new drill site appear to be on a gravity high, just as Tai and Itumbula. Furthermore these drill sites are on the only large flat bit of land for which Noble have applied for a licence. All their other licences are on skinny bits of lake shore. These well sites are also much further from the main rift fault, suggesting much deeper drills than at M1 and M2. And they are much closer to He1's drill sites, 45km from Mbelele, but only 35km from Tai.
Indeed drill location 3 and the roadway leading to drill location 4 are actually within He1's licence area.
If the southern volcanoes are the source of the helium (I think the Itumbula result may throw that into some doubt) then Noble stand a chance of a better result here than at Mbelele. And they can't go further south as those licences are owned by He1, Kidunda and the Mining Commission who recently seized 5 of the biggest licences in this part of the rift from underperforming Helium Rift Valley.
Just to finish off another view of the licences and overall map
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53694506203/in/dateposted-public/
Hope it all comes out okay!
TS, no exactly the opposite. They want the He1's and Nobles with a proven track record of raising capital. And He1 have their own rig!!!
What they don't want is the loafers and shirkers who sit on licence applications for a decade and do nothing. That is why the Mining Commission has recently taken over a thousand mining licences including 50+ helium licences, and ejected their sitting but lazy tenants.
See my previous posts for what is really going on, and the Eyasi gas, oil thingy.
Link showing location of the four potential pads, 1 looks pretty certain 2, 3 and 4 just potential pads at present https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53689025882/in/dateposted-public/
Very quickly Ilemba, within Nobles licence area today compared with 12 days ago
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53690348070/in/dateposted-public/
Compare appearance of the pad with Mbelele-1 as it was being built
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53158617447/in/dateposted-public/
Also this is an overall view of the area with a number of possible pads under construction, although Pad 1 is the only one which looks well on the way to completion. What is more Pad 3 if it is indeed to exist at all actually falls within He1's licence area, the blue line marks the boundary between He1's and noble's licences, here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53687908710/in/dateposted-public/
And latest images do indeed confirm much equipment appears to have left Itumbula
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53690122833/in/dateposted-public/
May expand on this over the weekend.
All fairly theoretical at this stage, much work to be done on firming it up.
Latest from Rukwa! Unfortunately the latest images from our part of Rukwa, 25-4-24 although generally cloud free did have cloud covering much of the Itumbula locations, so unfortunately there was no confirmation that much equipment has now been removed from the Itumbula W and SE pads, although from the images on 20-4-2024 I suspect that is the case.
Of more interest is goings on in Nobles neck of the woods - they said some time ago that they were fully funded for a couple of shallow wells at Mbelele-1 area perhaps down to 100M+ and a pilot production plant. so far as I am aware they haven't mentioned a deep drill campaign but have recently been in funding (begging bowl) mode - for what exactly? Do they still have access to their rig? And to what end? Well whilst mooching around Rukwa I have noticed that someone has put onto Google Earth a locator marked "location 2". No idea of who or why but it has piqued my interest over the last couple of months. Now close by that location is this, images from Maxar 1-23, Sentinel 2-24 and 4-24
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53684366930/in/dateposted-public/
Now that looks to me much like a roadway and hints of a pad area. Further inspections and comparison with Maxar from 30-1-2023 reveals that these new roadways are actually new and have been constructed in recent months
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53684936944/in/dateposted-public/
Construction actually appears to have begun with the initial roadway as long ago as October 2023 and then continued at a slow pace until interrupted by flooding around December 2023. construction again started around February 2024 and this is the position a few days ago on 23-4-2024
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53685056655/in/dateposted-public/
There are hints of 3 pads under construction, with the central part of the roadway not yet built, this area was underwater for all of January, so they're possibly waiting for it to dry out. Do we know for sure that this is Noble? Well, no BUT - this shows the possible new drill locations with Noble new licence applications, and the new locations fall slap bang in the middle of one of the new applications.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53685080680/in/dateposted-public/
The Tz Cadastre Mining Portal shows these licences having been applied for by Noble but not yet approved or granted, so quite why Noble would jump the gun I'm not sure, unless the mining portal was out of date and the licences have actually been granted.
But if drilling is to take place it this location it is significant as it is within around 1km of He1's licence area here,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53683857337/in/dateposted-public/
Overall view showing the fault indicating that noble would be drilling a BMFC again
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53683755667/in/dateposted-public/
I don't know what to think, I try to be logical and go off the evidence.
Noble have the begging bowl out at present, having said they were fully funded for their shallow well pilot plant. I wouldn't have thought their shallow wells would have needed a rig such as the Predator, and personally I'm not a fan of the lease out theory, cost implications if the rig were to fail drilling a 3rd party well.
So quite a bit of rigging/derigging support equipment may have gone 'awol' - find where it is, and that may be our next drill target.
Of course if the next set of images show equipment has returned then we then need to reassess the conclusions.
Of course, without wanting to extrapolate too far, from a few grainy images, the implication of these latest images is interesting. There could be a number of reasons for support equipment leaving the pad areas, maybe for long term maintenance in Mbeya prior to the new drilling season, or maybe it was on lease and is no longer required but the sort of equipment which appears to be represented by the black blobs which are no longer present, diggers, cranes, flatbeds etc is the sort of equipment which during 2023 tended to follow the rig around for dismantling and reassembly. If subsequent images show that the pads are indeed clear of much equipment, then the implication is that they are required else where for reassembly, and that the rig...well, I'll leave that to your own conclusions. Pending confirmation, and just a hunch at present...
Part 2
Contrast with Tai-3 where we were treated to an array of good images, such as this
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53372150871/in/dateposted-public/
Why so secretive now? Anyway back to Itumbula W - the key thing is that the four back blobs surrounding the pad area now appear to be much diminished and number just one, perhaps two, with the cement hoppers and tanker possibly still being present. So it would appear that recent activity is that some of the white containers were removed from Itumbula SE around early March, followed by various bits of equipment first half of April, and in the last week equipment appears to have been removed from Itumbula W. So where has it gone, and has it gone permanently or is it just temporary? Only time will tell the latter, and as to the where, well it hasn't gone to Camp Rukwa. Tai-3? Maybe, some earthworks there but I'd still say these look agricultural rather than He1 related, and the pad looks so far as I can tell a bit neglected, but impossible to say until some black/white blobs appear or the area turns green suggesting crops growing. At present it is just a brown cleared area. So at present nothing can be determined, save that we know LB & Co were in Tz around 10-4-2024, and there has been some activity at SE and W since that date with equipment being removed from both pads, but to where is yet to be determined. As of 16-4-24 the Eyasi licences remain approved but not yet issued.
It does look like the rains have finished in our part of Rukwqa this season, the area has been generally clear the last few weeks with much of Tz free from cloud today, although there is presently a storm moving in from the East. It looks like the 2024 ground activities actually commenced a couple of weeks ago. Not that I'm expecting confirmation from He1 just yet. In 2023 it took them some 8 weeks to confirm that ground activity was actually taking place, even though it could be seen on Sentinel.
Part 1
A quick update on activities at Rukwa up to yesterday. These are the Itumbula W and SE pads, top 6 days ago, bottom yesterday
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53668239891/in/dateposted-public/
Taking the SE pad first this latest image seems to be confirmation that some of the white containers, presumably offices and accommodation were removed in early March, followed by items of equipment around mid April - the "blobs" on the W part of the pad are no longer present in the images of 15-4-24 and 20-4-24. Some equipment remains in the SE corner of the pad and the cellar area is visible as a black "blob" in the centre.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647475594/in/dateposted-public/
The W pad also appears shows some recent changes over the last week or so, although we would need confirmation with another image to be certain and there seems to have been a little high level cloud yesterday which slightly obscures the image. This is a series of images taken between the beginning of March and mid April, showing a couple of white blobs on the pad, one in the middle and one towards the S part of the pad, these appear to be respectively cement hoppers and a tanker.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647599215/in/dateposted-public/
How do we know this? Well from this image
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53544301885/in/dateposted-public/
tweeted by He1 in early February 2024, one of only two images of the pad, both from a distance and at ground level. There have never been any images of the Itumbula SE pad.
The end of April is when things start to motor around Rukwa. Latest images suggest that there is considerable activity around the Noble Base Campsite with significant changes between mid February and yesterday from Sentinel
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53661838767/in/dateposted-public/
their camp seems to have expanded significantly over the last two month. Impossible to say what equipment is being moved into there without ground images or a Maxar satellite shot. In the last week a considerable amount of equipment has been moved from the north east corner of the site towards the south, with possible additions? This movement could be because the lake shore has expanded towards the camp.
For context this is the campo late last year, although it appears to have been almost completely reconsituted since then - no close up images released though since last October
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53248908958/in/dateposted-public/
Very quickly, and no firm conclusions as yet, this is Itumbula yesterday
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53658965139/in/dateposted-public/
Compare with images over previous weeks here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647475594/in/dateposted-public/
and equipment present at the pad over the last month or so appears to have been removed from Itumbula SE in the last 5 days, as much of the pad is now clear and looks much "cleaner". Comparison with Itumbula W over previous weeks suggests that much equipment remains there, but will have to look in more detail later to be sure
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647599215/in/dateposted-public/
Tai-3 looks a little more interesting, an area just to the east of the pad looks like it has been cleared over that last month or so, comparisons here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53658940869/in/dateposted-public/
At present I'd view this as normal agricultural activity, too early to suggest otherwise, but two things hint, but only hint that this might not be so, firstly last year construction at Tai commenced around end April, secondly a large area of cleared ground is unusual at this time of year, see this area image
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53658813893/in/dateposted-public/
however the boundaries of the cleared area may match existing field boundaries
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/52981162436/in/dateposted-public/
Really need a few more good pictures to be sure that there is or is not any He1 related activity here
Part 1
Just a quick update on activity around Itumbula over the last month or so. This is images of Itumbula SE between 1-3-24 and 11-4-24.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647475594/in/dateposted-public/
As I speculated earlier some of the accommodation/office containers shown as white were removed around early March, as the most recent images confirm that their "footprint "is now much smaller, In addition the light brown pad area on 1-3-24 was much darker on 11-3-24 indicating heavy vehicle movements (probably associated with the removal of the containers), in the subsequent images it gets lighter indicating movements have stopped. But the pad, on 10-4-24 apart from the containers now looks similar to the 1-3-24, so it looks like only the containers have been removed and nothing else since 11-3-24.
This is Itumbula W on the same dates
https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53647599215/in/dateposted-public/
again movements early March with equipment being removed, but not the white containers, and nothing since mid March, although the most recent image is partly obscured by cloud shadow. From Twitter it looks like Lorna and the team were in Tanzania for several days around the first full week in April. I can't help but feel that Zak Mir may have got wind of this visit and timed his pump and dump to coincide with the period immediately prior to this.
However it was this tweet that caught my eye "Helium One
@Heliumone1
·
10 Apr
"Here, our #HE1 CEO and Director of Operations meeting with Dr. Vedast Makota (Director of Licensing and Information Systems) and Eng. Aziza Swedi (Manager of Mining Cadastre) of the Mining Commission "
Cont/...