Member Info for skittish

And DS said at Proactive that he had no intention of doing a placing as it would be diluting himself and his options at 20p.

And he also said he was mystified by the share price being 10 pence - well if he was doing a placing he wouldn't be so mystified.

I certainly would reconsider my investment here if they were to issue significantly more shares in the near future.

Supposing there were cost/time over-runs bringing Tilapia into production following a placing. Hopefully not, but it can't be ruled out. The shares would be massacred.

The right thing to do is build on what we have got now - and once that is secure - read producing - then branch out. That should only be 60 days away.

I agree the share price is perplexing and did originally favour the likelihood of a placing - but have changed my mind - especially with a "bumper" CPR due very soon. Maybe it has been held down for Kilkenny - in these fractious markets anything is possible.

Also DS is targeting "distressed" assets - so the target is going to be the distressed party - not us scrambling to pay for it by issuing millions of shares.

Issuing a more shares, and possibly then hitting a few bumps in the road, is a quick way to turn us into a distressed party and wreck shareholder value.

Play it long and cool DS ...........

Sunday Times today -

"TransferWise is poised to sell a stake that would value the digital payments processor at more than £3bn. Founded in London in 2011 by two Estonian entrepreneurs, TransferWise has appointed Goldman Sachs to sell about $200m (£153m) in new shares on behalf of existing investors."

2018 revenue $151M, net profit $8M, transfers $4Bn per month.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/transferwise-worth-3bn-7zxpn6bql

Sunday Times today -

"TransferWise is poised to sell a stake that would value the digital payments processor at more than £3bn. Founded in London in 2011 by two Estonian entrepreneurs, TransferWise has appointed Goldman Sachs to sell about $200m (£153m) in new shares on behalf of existing investors."

2018 revenue $151M, net profit $8M, transfers $4Bn per month.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/transferwise-worth-3bn-7zxpn6bql

The Times from 9th February

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/earthport-bids-head-for-stratosphere-pfczlwj8c

Hopefully this is the important bit - and a way to go yet.

"a bauble neither of the credit card goliaths can bear to lose to its rival."

"Up Earthport popped just after Christmas with the news it was recommending a £198 million bid from Visa at 30p-a-share — a stellar 250 per cent premium. A decent effort, too, from chairman Sunil Sabharwal and newish chief executive Amanda Mesler, not least when her main focus seems to be getting her picture in the paper. Or at least that’s what you’d think from the calls from her PR man.

Even better followed: Mastercard, trumping the bid with an agreed 33p-a-share offer on January 25. It even got one of Earthport’s clients to advise it: Bank of America Merrill Lynch. And now look: Visa, advised by Goldman Sachs, has upped the ante. An offer worth £247 million at 37p: a 397 per cent premium to the pre-bid price. The market expects another shot from Mastercard, too: the shares rose 14 per cent to 44p.

Perhaps the market has rather overlooked Earthport, whose clients reckon it saves them the cost and hassle of building their own networks. But, with Visa valued at $308 billion and Mastercard at $220 billion, maybe it’s got lucky: a bauble neither of the credit card goliaths can bear to lose to its rival. Whatever, at least investors will end up with a quality recommended bid."

Overall the various finance houses reporting on 8.3's appear to have increased their holdings over the last week.

Hank Uberoi has reduced by 25M over the last week.

He can afford to as he has 45M options at 24p so can only win from here, in addition to the 13M shares he still holds. So win-win for him.

The finance houses certainly see to think a higher offer is coming.

But it still looks like we have quite a few bored holders happy to sell out a bit higher than we were a few months ago.

Couple more pics:-

https://ibb.co/4TB5rNr

https://ibb.co/rfRLgLG

Yes, agree CPR would be really useful.

But I guess it is a bit of cat and mouse at the moment.

DS is of course pushing the licence issue with SNPC as a means of getting the $10M or a greater share of the field above 56%.

CNOOC next door have 85%, with SNPC having 15%, but I'm guessing that SNPC get a free carry on that. Maybe that is where DS is coming from using that as a precedent, saying - you can have a free carry as well on Talapia, but we want 85% like CNOOC has.

85% was the figure he mentioned on Proactive at the end of last month.

I suspect SNPC probably has a pretty good idea of what is there anyway.

CNOOC appear to have drilled only 1 km away from, us as shown on the photographs I posted earlier. I'm being a bit cautious as there was no rig visible.

Having said that I suspect the well site was under the large roofed structure close to the settlement ponds.

But the evidence of the foundations for tanks and the settlement ponds, and major earthworks which are extensive and about 10X plus the size of our operation suggest that they have already found something pretty big down there.

The topside architecture they were in the process of building certainly suggests something much bigger than 1,500bpd which we are targeting from R2 and Mengo.

Compared to their site, ours is a bit of midget.

Pity we haven't got a drilling engineer on here to give us a professional view on what can be seen. DS I would think would have a pretty good idea of what was going on there anyway, as it would be difficult to keep such things secret despite all the berms and camouflage.

A look on Google Earth suggest that some part of the site have expanded further, however this is quite low resolution so it is difficult to tell what is what in terms of site activity.

CNOOC appears to have taken on board or contracted out to Wing Wah which is a private Chinese company so there isn't going to be much information coming from that direction. Presumably they will have done a CPR to which the SNOC would be privy.

I would have thought our CPR would be available around the end of the month, and would hope that we could have progress on the licence shortly after..

DS will know how to negotiate however, so I think we are in reasonably good hands there.

Anyway I think they're still probably waiting for the CPR, which they would probably be duty bound to show to SNPC straight away, who in turn will probably not commit until they've seen it, even if they will have already seen CNOOC's CPR anyway.

So my take is we may have to wait til the end of the month for CPR, then early March for licence, and April for production.

Meanwhile we may continue to be buffeted by the market and people trying to get in cheaper and torrents of selling - noticeable that the buying is exactly matched by selling.

Anyway for any late comers here are a few nice piccies again -

https://ibb.co/3hsYgXc

https://ibb.co/QcR9czZ

https://ibb.co/4T

Why are we discussing matd?

Skittish, camouflage nets ? The mind boggles, what on earth are they up to?

Yes, you can tell they're nets as they cast a shadow on the ground so they are obviously raised above it. there are also quite high earthworks around the site which don't appear necessary for what they are doing, ie presumably drilling for oil, but would prevent any passer by from seeing into the site.

Closer view here -

https://ibb.co/4TB5rNr

I thought I'd share these whilst we're all waiting for some share price action..........

The first photo is quite high resolution from Bing taken probably mid 2017. It shows our drilling site on the top left and on the right it shows what I assume to be Chinese drilling activity as this is in the CNOOC licence area with borders ors.

The area of activity covers a considerably greater area than our drill site. As our licence area extends about 1 km inland this will be right on the border between CNOOC and AAOG.

https://ibb.co/3hsYgXc

this is a closer view of the Chinese activity, there does not appear to be a drilling rig present but there are other signs of drilling activities, earth works, settlement pools, and various earth works. Parts of the area appear to be covered by camouflage nets and part has a large roof built upon it. To the upper right are what appear to be foundations for tanks etc.

https://ibb.co/QcR9czZ

This third photo is lower resolution, taken on 26th January 2019 from the Digital Globe WV3 satellite. WV3 will have taken it at much higher resolution but this is a "free" copy. This shows AAOG with a slightly larger area than before, (left), CNOOC (middle) with a what appears to be a completed complex, and then what appear to be 5 drilling pads arranged in a neat "X" to the east of the original CNOOC area. These pads are not visble in the 2017 image. Some of the pads appear to have some equipment installed - maybe a tank?

https://ibb.co/rfRLgLG

I hope the images come out alright - I'm not very tech savvy.

How would others interpret these images?

Am I barking up the wrong tree, or just barking?

If you look at the IPO document Tilapia was funded by $2.5m in cash and $2.5m in shares.

Even after the deal was agreed it took several months to complete.

We are talking distressed assets, so in a couple of months with $1m a month coming in funding will not be an issue.

Muddying waters by those trying to get in ever cheaper.

Land Grab - The Times today

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/china-tests-may-in-550m-move-for-uk-business-d0638rts6

Behind a paywall - but snippets -

"A Chinese financial services company that was blocked from buying a US money transfer business last year is acquiring World First, a British payments group, in a deal that tests the government’s stance towards foreign takeovers

Neither company disclosed the price that Ant Financial is paying, but it is thought to be about $700 million (£547 million).

“Alipay and World First’s capabilities and international footprints are highly complementary,” a spokesman from Ant Financial said. “The tie-up will add World First’s international online payments and virtual account products to Alipay’s broad range of technology solutions, enabling us to reach a greater number of customers, especially in the fast-growing area of cross border e-commerce."

They're all at it - this is a land grab.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/china-tests-may-in-550m-move-for-uk-business-d0638rts6

Behind a paywall - but snippets -

"A Chinese financial services company that was blocked from buying a US money transfer business last year is acquiring World First, a British payments group, in a deal that tests the government’s stance towards foreign takeovers

Neither company disclosed the price that Ant Financial is paying, but it is thought to be about $700 million (£547 million).

“Alipay and World First’s capabilities and international footprints are highly complementary,” a spokesman from Ant Financial said. “The tie-up will add World First’s international online payments and virtual account products to Alipay’s broad range of technology solutions, enabling us to reach a greater number of customers, especially in the fast-growing area of cross border e-commerce."

Well in that case this is even more of a one way bet.

Curious, these markets at the moment.

Today's action or lack of it is really interesting and this is clearly still a traders share, selling and buying dominated by people quite happy to make a quick 10% (nothing wrong with that) and then move on, or come back in a few days weeks and try the same again.

This is assisted by the RNS announcing expected flow rates before any flow rate testing has been completed.

It is easy to mock.

So how can DS be so confident of the flow rates when this is his first well on this site?

Well I'd like to speculate a while........

I believe that is because someone already has a producing well very, very close by, but it has never been announced.

Yesterday evening I speculated in the purpose of the large red building relatively close to us. I don't know of course what it cost, from what I can find (or rather cant find) our Oriental friends have never announced its building, commissioning, or even existence, but I'd be surprised if there was much change from $100M.

Likewise with the satellite communication station and the other very large facility. Likewise with drilling that may have taken place late 2016/early 2017.

So why build something costing $100M, miles from anywhere, if there is nothing for it to do?

Ergo, there is something for it to do and that is to process the oil presently flowing from a well close to us.

And that is why DS is so confident, because he knows the oil flowing close by does so at 1,500-1,800bpd, and I suspect he knows also what is in the Djeno, as that has probably also been encountered by our Oriental friends.

A bit speculative I acknowledge, but a quick look on various satellite mapping websites reveals some very curious goings on in our vicinity, none of which have ever received any publicity.

13 February 2019

ANGLO AFRICAN OIL & GAS PLC ("AAOG" or the "Company")

Production Plan for TLP-103C

Anglo African Oil & Gas plc (AIM: AAOG), an independent oil and gas developer, is pleased to provide details of its plan to bring the TLP-103C well ('the Well' or 'TLP-103C') at its Tilapia licence in the Republic of the Congo into production.

Highlights:

-- TLP-103C to produce from the upper reservoirs by comingling production from R2 and the Mengo, following a double completion including a one-off frack of the Mengo

-- Initial anticipated aggregate flowrate in excess of 1,500 bopd for the first 14-18 months
-- Projected financial metrics at 1,500bopd:
o c.US$1 million/month net free cashflow generated

o breakeven oil price falls to below US$20 per barrel

-- First production targeted for April 2019
-- Completion of the Well to production will be funded from existing cash resources

Is it the kink in the road between the two written words "Hollemoni! north and south of the kink with the road number "RN5" written more or less right on it?

- Yes

The road is the N5

And this is a view of the kink, with our pad on the coast to the left (west) and the larger Chinese facility to the SE of us.

https://zoom.earth/#-4.533038,11.778741,15z,sat

Actually it isn't the same plane - propeller in the wrong place - but you get the idea.