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If it's any consolation, the management team behind Kazera recently arranged a US$98 million farm-out deal with Occidental for Amerisur Resources, another of their vehicles. And they are currently trying to put together an off-take agreement for Ironveld, again another one of their vehicles. Basically, they can get things done. That said, this remains a high-risk investment.

Agreed. At the end of the day, the value of most oilers comes down to production and reserves. The overall impression I have is that oilers, and small oilers in particular, have been out of fashion for several years. As a value investor, this suits me. Providing the company can increase its monetisable reserves and, of course, increase production, then the jigsaw comes together. The next milestone will be the production of its final results for 2018. This really is the litmus test as to how far the company has come. And that's important. We may be living in an investment world of Index Trackers but there are plenty of stock pickers out there who need figures on which to base allocation decisions.

The company's acquisition of Puesto Flores and Estancia Vieja in 2017, in my view, has completely changed the profile of the business. And that is now feeding into production and reserves. But it's yet to feed into a full year's results.

Unsurprisingly, given its focus on Puesto Flores, reserves in its Salta province assets have fallen. However, what today's update doesn't point out is that the Puesto Guardian concession runs until 2050 and all the compulsory work has been completed. Basically, it can exploit the area at a time of its choosing. The three well programme for Puesto Guardian appears to be still on track for the latter part of this year. Obviously, depending upon the outcome, this will probably have a substantial impact on its reserves

An earlier poster mentioned that it was a tad optimistic to base the net present value of its reserves on an oil price of US$68 per barrel. However, my understanding is that this figure is based upon what the company received for its oil in the last calendar year. It's not a forward-looking assumption.

Incidentally, to Argentina's credit, the auditors who carried out this appraisal are, by law, rotated on an annual basis. In my opinion, it does provide a degree of comfort often lacking in the broader UK audit industry.

Yes, that article was a good find. Interesting point made by Paul Baay of Touchstone Exploration in raising the idea of changing the deductibility with respect to SPT. Especially interesting when one considers the capital expenditure associated with developing TGAL. I would have thought that such a change was in the long-term interests of the T&T authorities. And it would not require the complete overhaul of the legislation.

Baay also pointed out that when Heritage was part of Petrotrin, it simply collected revenue from the imposition of SPT. Now it was a payer. Basically, the dynamics have changed. The restructuring of Petrotrin may have given Trinidad's oil industry a useful ally in its efforts to reform the SPT.

Today's update seems to reiterate the importance of the Merlon acquisition. Its offshore Vietnam assets appear tired and, of course, that's impacting its reserves. Ultimately, it needs to drill more wells but its partners don't appear willing to stump up the cash. That said, its production is reasonably stable and there is the real prospect of action in H2 2019 as the Merlon acquisition kicks in. But much is riding on making the purchase a success.

On balance, I think that buying Merlon is a smart move. Moreover, its acreage is situated in an area with very high drilling success rates at over 50%. And the cost of drilling is relatively low, averaging no more than $3 million per well. With some 70% of its 1,570 square kilometres covered by existing 3D and targets already identified, it seems to have little excuse for inactivity. With the acquisition so close to completion, I would have thought that it's time the company put its plans for developing Merlon on the table.

Whether this is the reason for today's fall in the share price, I am not entirely sure. But Echo Energy has just released details of a duster drilled in the Tapi Aike basin. The result appears to have caused a fall of over 30% in its share price from today's opening. My understanding is that in terms of geology, there is no read-across. Tapi Aike lies over 370km south of Puesto Flores and President's main operations. That said, it may have impacted sentiment.

No matter how one views it, developing the company's East Coast assets will be expensive relative to the size of the business. It might be useful if it started discussing what options it's considering. Will there be another placing? Is a joint-venture a possibility?

Within a month of last year's Mining Indaba, Pan African's share price dropped by about 25% to around 7.5p. But over the same period, the ZAR price of Gold barely moved. Obviously, there were many other factors involved. However, it seems that investors took a close look at the company and decided that it was overvalued. In recent days, the stock price has been quite firm. Maybe with the successful commissioning of Elikhulu and a stronger ZAR price of Gold, up around 14% compared to early March 2018, the company could be in for a re-rating. At the very least the recent Mining Indaba gave the company the opportunity to present its investment case to an international audience.

It still baffles me, even after today's sharp increase in the stock price, how such a strategically valuable company has such a small market capitalisation. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), global production of Tantalum in 2017 was just 1,300 tonnes. Kazera has demonstrated that it can, with a modest set-up, produce tonnes of high purity Tantalum on a fairly regular basis. Basically, if the JORC report backs up what the company has been doing in practice then it could take a sizeable chunk of the market.

Not only is Tantalum a strategic element that is widely used in the electronics industry. But the penalties for sourcing it from illicit suppliers are potentially crippling – there is legislation in place dealing with conflict minerals on both sides of the Atlantic. As of 2018, some 60% of global production came from just two countries: the DRC and Rwanda. So it's fair to say, supplies are not exactly guaranteed.

Of course, the JORC report could prove to be a disaster but the figures released thus far seem to indicate the opposite.

From a timing perspective, I would have thought that this year's Mining Indaba was perfect for Pan African to communicate its transition to a low-cost Gold producing model. Particularly on the back of a reasonable Gold price and the increased Gold buying of Central Banks.

It certainly gives it a great opportunity to raise the company's profile after executing on its plans and taking some tough decisions such as closing Evander.

Whether I am reading this correctly is a moot point. But in this short interview with Nick Clarke, CAML Chairman, he mentions that potential acquisition targets are too highly priced considering the state of the commodity market. My take on that is there are no acquisitions on the horizon. It seems to be concentrating on maximising its current assets and paying down the debt associated with acquiring SASA.

By the way, the interview took place while he was attending the Investing In African Mining Indaba at Cape Town which is still underway as I write.

https://www.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcasts-embed/5c596642a0c50933d271204f/event/?popup=true

Just how successful Barkby proves to be is anyone's guess. Obviously, do your own research but from what I can understand no quoted company GC has led over the past 16 years has been taken over or has ever paid a dividend. You can check the performance of his other quoted vehicles yourself. Maybe it will be different this time but I think that it's probably worth examining GC's performance in recent years and assessing whether he delivers for shareholders.

Underlying today's RNS, in my opinion, is the clear message that the company's actions are rapidly generating cash. Short-cycle delivery seems to be at the heart of the enterprise. The figures speak for themselves with free cash generation before G&A up almost 500% year on year.

It also seems to be heading towards a more balanced portfolio with oil, gas and electricity sales to the Grid. But this is not years down the line. The company already powers its Puesto Prado field itself and is constructing a 16km overhead cable to link Estancia Vieja with Puesto Flores. That will then make the latter energy self-sufficient and give it some 2-3 MW to sell into the Grid. And the time frame for this is within six months.

As for its pivot towards gas, its recent acquisition and with it some 60km of gas pipelines open up its Estancia Vieja gas field for monetisation. And as with the above, the time frames are relatively short. Should Estancia Vieja prove to be less than expected we will know within months.

Essentially, it has a pipeline of projects that appear to be capable of significant cash generation in the short-term and they are being funded out of existing cash flow.

This short piece is a good outline of the increasing role Gold is playing in the global financial system. For good measure, I would add that in a digital world Central bankers appear to feel more comfortable with a highly portable physical asset that is under their direct control. Underpinning this demand may be the desire to put significant reserves out of reach of US power. And this desire, in my view, shows no sign of abating.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-31/gold-demand-up-amid-biggest-central-bank-buying-spree-in-decades

The recent production report showed that year-on-year, production had fallen by 28% compared to the same quarter in 2017 (2017: 588,360 BO 2018: 423,386 BO). When one considers that the company had planned on drilling “Up to” 16 wells but, in fact, drilled just two during 2018, I would suggest that there probably was some disappointment in the market and that was reflected in the drop in the share price. It might also be borne in mind that the company appears to have exited 2018 with lower production levels than it exited 2017. This will, of course, impact its cash position.

On the upside, it now has an imminent drilling programme concentrating on CPO-5. And this could really be substantial but Amerisur is the junior partner in this block and how it's developed is largely down to ONGC. As for its partnership with OA, the drilling will not commence until next year.

It's still a company that I am interested in but I think that it will need maybe two years to rebuild its production and replace what appears to be falling production levels in its core Platanillo assets.

This article may be worth further investigation. In essence, it points to a greater role for Gold and, more particularly, the Russian state demand for Gold from domestic producers. As a slight aside, it's easy to forget that US Dollar accounts are cleared via the US. Something that has not been lost on China, Russia and Turkey. All major long-term buyers of Gold.

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/russian-central-bank-buying-gold-on-the-international-market/

With the company set to sell electricity into the Argentine Grid, it would be useful to know what price the company expects to receive for its services. It's clearly a useful income stream and improves the quality of its earnings. But investors really need to be able to quantify the upside.

The recent Peter Levine interview with Malcy contained no mention of Puesto Guardian. It would be good to know whether the planned programme of drilling for 2019 is still on track. There is obviously lots of action elsewhere across its acreage but is that in addition to Puesto Guardian?

It will be interesting to see how Elikhulu develops. Obviously, the company can recycle its own dumps but there is huge potential to buy-in and treat material from outside its licence. My understanding is that its original costings did not include the potential to buy-in material.

Yes, the dividend came through this afternoon. By the way, the number of private investors who do not appreciate the importance of dividends in terms of overall returns still surprises me.