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Good reason??

Good question!

I really am not sure, I just try to report what I see (IMHO, DYOR etc, as always) but yes, it is a little extraordinary.

I can understand them trying to manage expectations, especially after what happened with Tai-1, and related to that is taking their time, as the rush job last time was not much short of a disaster, certainly for shareholders who held on (me), so they'll want everything to be absolutely ready this time. Same goes for the workforce.

But who would have guessed in mid July that Nobles Drillmec rig, which was then around 5000 miles from Rukwa, and at that time still in Chesterfield could spud at the same time as our Predator which was then 16km away from the wellhead?

Of course those spuds have yet to come to pass, but it looks increasingly likely that that could be the case, nothing guaranteed of course.

I can only think that possibilities are that a "joint" spud would be a form of "insurance" for both companies, doubles your chances of a find.

Also if one hits and the other doesn't all is not lost for the "loser", Nobles is a Basin Margin play, ours an Intra Basin play, but both have the two different types of play in their licence areas, so the "loser" can say, "we'll just drill the type of play we "know" will be successful".

We know Noble will drill two wells Mbelele-1 and 2, and are funded for that, we obviously are funded for Tai-3, and they say "possibly" another well. He1 have spent at least $10M on all this at Tai-3 so what would be another 4 weeks wages to get a 2nd drill in - a paltry amount - they may not just be fully committed as yet. I suspect is almost nailed on but if they hit big at Tai-3 may not be necessary, but would be useful for a CPR.

So I'm expecting a 4 well programme between the two, both drilling and spudding at the same time.

That I think gives both a much better chance of success, and of course they've both got their eyes on funding a 2024 campaign.

But if none of those 4 wells were to find helium, commercial or not, then both companies have got a really serious problem on their hands, and I suspect it will be back to the drawing board, and not just until 2024.

But as always as pi's we only see a fraction of what is going on, and co operation between Noble and He1, for the benefit of both sets of shareholder could be closer than we think.

And as an aside, if you have say £500K+ committed to this company, it would pay you to buy some high resolution Maxar images for a few $100 a piece, which would tell you exactly what was going on down at Rukwa, with only 24/48 hours delay. Maybe the "big money" worked out what is going on some time ago and is yet to commit fully.

We rely on fuzzy Sentinel images.

Doing better today, but still below a month ago. Extraordinary. But so is this share!

Yes, fantastic to get that rig pic, today.

But Sentinel tells us, again, that all is not what it seems. This is a bit of a rehash of my post from a few days ago, with a bit more narrative detail, and linking with today's pic.

That picture was almost certainly taken between 30-7-23 and 4-8-23.

This is the pad on 30-7-23, a diffuse darker area around the site of the well head -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53082115558/in/datetaken/

which had developed into a denser, less diffuse black splodge over the wellhead by 4-8-2023 -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53095653270/in/dateposted-public/

That (IMHO, DYOR) is what we now see in this mornings picture -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53134077305/in/datetaken/

In fact Sentinel shows that equipment had already been moved to the pad well head area by 25-7-2023, although that could have been the trucks an cranes pictures of which were tweeted by He1 last week.

This image I've posted recently, showing Camp Rukwa, 26 June, 25 July, 19 August, filling up and then emptying

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53128339617/in/datetaken/

That dark blob in the centre of 25-7-23 is almost certainly the rig convoy. It is approx 50M x 25M or 1,250 sq metres. Trucks are usually around 15M x 3M = 45 sq metres (although some for transporting this sort of stuff may be a little oversized. So allowing say 18M x 4M for each truck, and a parking area, the "blob" at Camp Rukwa on 25-7-2023 would represent around 17 - 18 trucks, which would be the whole of the rig convoy.

By 4-8-2023 that large black blob had started to break up and become diffuse, showing that quite a bit of the equipment and trucks had already moved to the pad at that time -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53094691087/in/datetaken/

There are a couple of other blobs on 25-7-23, one black two white which have since disappeared. The white ones are likely van/pickup trucks, a white blob appeared at the pad on 19-8-2023, and a white van was in one of the tweets from last week.

So what does this tell us?

1. Well, they've confirmed (of course) that the rig was one of the first pieces of equipment to reach the pad, and be set up and Sentinel shows us that this probably happened around 3 weeks ago.

2. That they are confident enough to tweet it and therefore the pad set up by now is actually complete.

3. That they are maintaining a 3 week "delay" in news reporting, so we'll probably get the pad all rigged up and complete tweet around 9-9-2023, say 10 days for testing etc, big drum roll, and spud week commencing 19-9-2023.

4. Which will be just around the time Noble operating at Warp speed will be about to spud also. Their ship should be at Port Said tonight.

Still quite a bit of selling into that little rise, Ho hum....

All IMHO, DYOR etc etc

Wow!

Frayed nerves as we approach spud, possibly the biggest spud on Aim this year, who would have thought it?

You would never think that anyone on here, with numerous offerings sage advice, both for and against, could possibly have an agenda.

But don't worry, the seller if indeed it is him (and I don't know that it is) may only have another 50M to get rid of, if he is going down to zero, which he may not be, of course.

Anyway, no matter, I've tried to extract more information from those space pics we've been getting. Lets look at the reality that Sentinel tells us is actually happening on the ground, and does this accord with what we are being told by the company - well yes, but maybe also, no.

It is all a question of timing.

So this is three images, showing Camp Rukwa, end June, end July and yesterday -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53128339617/in/dateposted-public/

You can see that the camp is fairly empty, fills up, then is now empty again, we know the rig arrived around 16-7-23 (I know) , so the 25-7-23 image shows the rig and associated equipment (17 truck loads, wasn't it), and now they have all left just leaving tyre marks.

At the north end of the camp we see the pipes stacked in an "L" shape, they're still there, so no drilling yet. How do we know they're pipes? Well He1 told us so on 9-5-23 here -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/52896943825/in/dateposted-public/

So camp fills up and empties, all straight forward, or is it?

Well maybe not.

So this was tweeted by He1, quoting Saint Lorna on 14-8-2023, just 6 days ago -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53129235009/in/dateposted-public/

I've helpfully included the text of the tweet. and in particular - "Commenced mobilisation of equipment" - so you would think that it had taken place very recently, shortly before the tweet.

But Sentinel tells a different story.

This is the pad on 25-7-2023

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53073704883/in/dateposted-public/

clearly some equipment is on the pad, a diffuse darker area where we now know the well head is. The CPR in fact told us the exact location.

And this is from 30-7-2023

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53082115558/in/dateposted-public/

So the slightly diffuse darker areas of 25-7-23 had coalesced into a dark splodge by 30-7-23, over the well head.

This is 19-8-23 (there was no Sentinel on 9-8-23, and 14-8-23 was cloudy).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53128322665/in/datetaken/

The dark splodge is still there but now larger.

So what does all this tell us?

Cont/...

Part2

Cont/-

Well it tells us that the rig (being one of the first bits of equipment to be set up) was at the well head site, and likely erected by 30-7-23, so the picture tweeted on 14-8-23 ""Commenced mobilisation of equipment" was actually likely taken around 25-7-23, as on that date the well head site was clear.

It also tells us that mobilisation of rig equipment also started around 25-7-23, if not a few days before as Camp Rukwa appears to have started to empty around that time, and erection of the rig and associated equipment was well under way by 30-7-23.

The company would have us believe that all this is just taking place within the last week, whereas in reality all these events took place around 3 weeks ago.

One can speculate as to why this might be so, but with Tai-1 you got the tweet first, and then could see a few days later confirmation on Sentinel that the event had actually taken place. Now the event happens on Sentinel and is confirmed by the tweet 2 or even 3 weeks later.

The pipes seem to be at Camp Rukwa still, so they aren't ready to spud just yet, it would appear, but what if they are more advanced with rig crews also? I think they have built in a 2/3 week contingency in terms of news reporting, and the well site is almost certainly up and ready to go as I type.

Will they wait, are they waiting for some equipment to arrive, after the non availability of measuring equipment was one of the factors which wrecked Tai-1? Are they waiting on Noble, that 2nd half September spud date does appear fairly nailed on? Would both drilling at the same time result in some "insurance" as maybe it doubles the chance of at least one of them flowing helium to the surface.

I'm not expecting the 2nd half of September date to move, I'm not suggesting that, but it looks to me like they are just about ready to go and spud at the present time and that the news and our expectations are being "managed" - to put it politely.

And while we're on "interesting things" this is a size comparison of Mbelele-1, Tai-3 and Mbelele-2 - the latter seems way oversized, and around 10x the size of Mbelele-1? Interesting or what?

One fly in the oinkment that He1 may not have anticipated is that there is now likely a big seller, possibly a mate (or associate) of IS who having made money in the placing is now moving on and could have as many as 50M shares to sell - see my earlier post from yesterday. That may have been unanticipated and hence the sudden flow of publicity over the last week, and the drop in the share price.

All IMHO, DYOR etc, etc...

PS I'd say the pictures speak for themselves, but with all the de ramping and trolling recently it is difficult to keep up with things. And it is 14 days for an EGM, if they were to hold one, 21 days for an AGM - although I don't really expect either. Interesting that us and Noble will spud at the same time, even though we probably could much sooner, if we wanted.

I suspect some think that I'm slightly off the wall, but it has been difficult for even me to keep up (although I have been distracted, still not yet actually seen the presentation) with all the various twists and turns over the last week, and theories as to why the share price has fallen so precipitously, since the presentation, in fact.

We've had fundraising, that it wasn't “put to bed” at the presentation, macro factors, micro factors, that something is wrong with the company, that something is wrong with Tanzania, to name but a few.

Since Saint Lorna took over, if you exclude what I would call "housekeeping" RNS's, we've had 6 which have actually been for operational purposes, 2 of those in the last 10 days, one of which was an RNS about a big presentation, biggest for nearly a year, which actually told us very little we didn't know already. Odd.

I suspect that the presentation was a hand holding exercise as they knew then what was to visit over the past few days.

IS said at the AGM that directors would be buying shares, he was true to his word. I suspect that his ultimate resignation was already known about then, and he duly exercised his 6M options (no doubt at 2.84p) a few minutes before resigning. People think he has been selling them, to invest in a new venture, I didn't really believe it, but now think that they are probably correct. He says he would retain a "substantial" holding, but he could sell 10M shares and still retain that "substantial" holding.

As an aside DM never exercised his options, showing that he was ambushed before he had a chance to do so.

Anyway, would even 10M be enough to get the share price down by around 25% in a week? I don't think so, given a fairly healthy daily volume.

I know some on here hold several million shares (way more than me, I might add), but there is one holder, and only one that I know of who holds more than 3%.

He is disclosed on the He1 share price info page, and is Liam Hale who owns as at 31-12-23, the date the page was most recently updated, 58M shares or 7.07%.

I did write about him in a post in April last.

Who is Mr Hale? Well, I don't know there is very little information about regarding him, at least that I know of.

I would think that he bought the shares, or at least those which would take him over 3% in the placing in December 2022, so he would have paid 5p. If he bought all his holding at 5p that would have cost him around £2.9M. If he were selling now (I think a 3M+ trade went through at 8p a day or so ago) he would still be making a significant profit, he may even have a short going to compansate for the decline in the share price.

I don't know, of course, if it is him, it could be one or several large holders, we will only find out the true position many months hence.

And because He1 are registered in the BVI we never get any TR1's, so the jurisdiction issue isn't just an academic matter, it really does affect the information that ordinary

part 2

cont/....

but if it were him why would he sell now, just as we are about to drill. it doesn't make sense, or could it?

information on mr hale is sp****, he did have a notifiable holding in cornish metals but sold out in december 2021, only notified to the company upon their enquiry in march 2022, although if he'd bought at the right time (never notified) he could have made a pretty penny, as the shares nearly doubled in the run up to december 2021.

the only other information available is that on admission on 19th july 2021 he held around 23m shares or 7% of bradda head lithium, value on admission around £1.3m. he no longer holds a notifiable interest, not sure when he sold, (bvi registered, again) but if it were a few months of admission he could have made 40% on his investment.

so you could actually produce a timeline in which the £1.3m into bradda head became £1.8m on exit, into cornish metals, a quick 60% there becomes £2.9m; into he1 @ 5p, sells for an average of say 8p for another 60%, and so on and so forth.

i'm not saying that did happen, but it could have happened.

the reason bradda head is important is that on admission in 2021 the non executive chariman was one john ian stalker.

so it would appear that mr hale and is were linked prior to his becoming a shareholder in he1.

i haven't really got time to delve further at the moment, but i'm sure that there could be more information and links to find.

i know some have commented on here that mr stalker could be selling down some of his stake to fund a new venture which has just listed in canada.

maybe mr hale is doing likewise, and from his brief past history he appears to like getting in at an early stage on his investments and selling after an initial reasonable rise. maybe mr stalker has introduced him to another investment.

whilst mr stalker selling say 10m shares may have a modest and short lived impact on the share price, if mr hale were also selling a sizable proportion of his 58m shares then that would be much less easy for the share price to deal with and might need senior executive action to try and deal with that.

if the he1 board had become aware that there was about to become a big seller of the share following mr stalkers resignation, then that could be a reason to issue an rns about a rather pointless pr exercise presentation, and then do a hand holding exercise to reassure investors that all was well, but not actually revealing much new news prior to the selling starting, and hopefully enable all those newly available shares to be mopped up in sort order.

just an idea, which to me would explain the recent activity, without having to resort to all manner of other reasons, including a placing, which will happen at some time, but at hopefully a much higher price than now.

Anyway the "real" post, and this question of forward planning by He1.

Obstando mentioned that the 350Mx350M area north of Tai-3 had been "recently" cleared - yes it has, up to a point.

I had been looking at images from previous years showing the same area, to really "prove" my theory, I thought at first I'd dropped a clanger, but now don't think so.

So this is the area, in the only really clear image we have from 2019 via Maxar and GE -

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53111126770/in/dateposted-public/

And these are images of the same area via Sentinel in August 2019 and 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53110149972/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53111141140/in/dateposted-public/

Again nothing to see.

This is the same area August 2021

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53111141235/in/dateposted-public/

With what we know now, you can perhaps make out the beginnings of a defined square area.

And this from August 2022

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53111230908/in/dateposted-public/

Perhaps slightly more defined.

And this from today, showing clear definition and evidence of heavy traffic on the roadway leading to "it"

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934344@N06/53110931949/in/dateposted-public/

So, the changes appear to have started as long ago as the summer of 2021. What was happening in the summer of 2021?

Tai-1.

Perhaps the area was selected as long ago as that following Tai-1, fenced off, locals allowed to collect bush wood from there (probably their main source of cooking fuel), good for He1 and for the locals, allowing the gradual clearing of wood and brush from the area over 2021/22, and then heavy work started in 2023 at the time that DNR began work on the Tai-3 pad and roadway, allowing the cleared area and roadway to it to be identified from imagery.

I guess the point I'm making is that He1 may be far ahead in its general planning, and much more work and planning has been carried out over the last couple of years that we have hitherto realised. IS alluded at the AGM to all the staff at He1 being gainfully employed despite it having the appearance of being "top heavy".

So maybe that has been the case all along, and the planning is far ahead of just drilling a single well in 2023, and has been for several years.

Wednesday should make for interesting viewing.

And Sentinel didn't upload Rukwa on 9-8-23, hence no new images, at least that I can find.

I don't want to take part in the "bickering" debate, far from it, but I think people on this board generally have broad enough shoulders to be able to take on board a range of opinions (good and bad) without having a long running spat about it.

There is no doubt in my mind that He1 will need to raise, probably before the end of this year - at what price and when even they are unlikely to know at present. We all hope it is after "discovery", when the share price will be high and dilution low, but there is no doubt to my way of thinking that the share price is disappointing bearing in mind we are probably only a few weeks away from spud. It is reasonable to question why that is, although the reasons for that could be many and varied. Some have a lot riding on this, and a few frayed nerves are only to be expected.

But the budget outlined on the last fundraise has I would think a fair amount of stretch in it especially that "formation evaluation" bit, so hopefully we'll get more information on the current state of funds next week

"Use of proceeds

The proposed Fundraise will support the targeted single hole exploration drilling programme, with the budget currently based on current estimated timeline and costs for the drilling rig, logistics, civils and drilling services, subject to final contracts, and limited cost escalation. The breakdown of the use of proceeds includes:

· Drilling rig: £2.07m

· Drilling services: £0.75m

· Civils: £0.36m

· Formation evaluation: £2.05m

· Drilling ancillaries: £0.35m

· Tax: £0.88m

· Additional working capital: £0.99m

The above use of proceeds includes an additional £0.45m of the Company's existing cash balance being utilised for the drilling campaign. The successful completion of the proposed Fundraise would provide the Company with sufficient working capital to at least 30 June 2023 based on the Phase II drilling campaign commencing in Q1 2023"

But I think they actually raised another $3M due to "demand" (at 5p!), so they may have up to $5M of "stretch" in there.

Anyway, cut to the chase, and those questions for the Board. I'm sure that they'll only answer those that they wish to answer, and I'm sure they they occasionally chuckle, or swoon, or roll eyes, at what is posted on here, by me included.

There are so many questions, and a day in the He1 office for a few selected He1 pi's wouldn't go amiss, however I don't think we'll get that wish granted.

But now I've used up most of my characters on this post and haven't even got to what I really wanted to discuss, so another will follow shortly, although some might find it tiresome.

It is basically on the subject of forward planning, and how pi's really probably only know about 1% of what is going on...

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