Member Info for Sturm

Great and as good as expected :)
I had expected #PTAL to crush 1 CAD on this update, but high Capex and sandbagging production guidance hold us back (temporarily).
The 125 million USD in Capex makes more sense now I guess, since they'll definitely need more wells to produce the field and some of the P3 wells will become P2 etc.
Also some people comment that 55 million USD was a disappointment without realizing it's FCF after Capex and most of the Capex is investment in future earnings and only 25 million (they say, but I think it's more like 40-50) is for sustaining production. Meaning the possible net profit and FCF in reality is much higher.
New presentation btw:
https://petrotal-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/PetroTal-IP-Feb-1-2023-Final.pdf

Seems silly to invest in a company when you don't trust the management. Just saying. I know I wouldn't.

It did close at 0.72 CAD / 43.75p in Canada yesterday. UK really seems to do it's worst lately.

Regarding withholding tax: They have paid out virgin dividend so I'll assume it's the same as first time. I was deducted 15% (but I'm not from UK/US). Maybe one of the OG shareholders can put a light on this.

Don't hold your breath on those warrants Supe. They were too cheap (hence substantially oversigned cf Manolo) and not with any of the usual SP exercise triggers (so also affecting the following bond loan size). Nonetheless they issued a much larger bond (and hence more costly - and I bet II's got their share of the bond too) than needed and the acquisition we were promised in that context never happened. They're IMO lacking the will to do something serious about Osheki. All in all, not really interested in stuff outside Bretana. I hope that changes. Don't forget that lighter oil saves the company from diluting Bretanas heavy oil at the scale of 1 USD /barrel (so - a lot!). Ofc. that's only relevant for ONP (so might not be relevant in the future.
It seems that every RNS we get about warrants kick us back a couple of percent. So no doubt in my mind that getting rid of those pesky warrants will help SP quite a bit. 1 million at a time... sigh. That's a long road to go.

Apart from that it's still undervalued and they're sandbagging when it comes to production and sales target. So much to come yet (despite the warrant/bond f.ckups and the general II friendly board/management).

If you like birds, then also shoot any cats trespassing your garden ;)
"When it comes to bird deaths, cats are unrivaled as the leading cause. Whereas wind turbines only kill about 234,000 birds every year in the United States, felines kill 2.4 billion, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service."
You never hear about that in the news though.

@ G_G_G - assuming 50/50 spend on buyback / dividends.
With a 16p exercise price #PTAL should be able to "buy back" the 61 million warrants @ 25p (since SP is 41ish).
i.e. 15.25 million £ / 18.6 million USD. Considering they've 100 mio. USD for distribution, that seems easily done.
At 40p they could buy back additionally 64 million shares, reducing the share count to 800.000.000 - meaning that the rest of the 50 million USD in payout would be 5.1p/share - and a yield of 12-13%.
With that kind of share buyback they might not be able to buy back 64 million shares; but then you'd get the yield + probably 7 - 8% on the share price (all else being equal).

And I still think they're sandbagging. Low growth on top of a year where they had massive headwind from distribution, CoVid, social disruption, record bad dry season - and they're not even pumping at full speed. I think (hope) it will be closer to 17.500 BOPD (they do after all have a full year to bring more barges / get ONP sorted) and with China reopening and Russian sanctions lining up, I think Brent will be somewhat higher. And 90 USD instead of 85 is > +30 million in Ebitda @ 17.5.
I'm not sure there's a lot of upside in the short run if you (/the market) believe the new guidance. However, the 100 million returning to shareholders should put a strong hand under the SP, so the risk is small IMO. When we get to Q3 it's probably a completely different story; I'm hoping for 1.5 CAD/92p EOY incl. divs.

I guess they're sandbagging with the guidance, expecting to buy back shares in Q2. At least now it's on the table they really, really don't want to downgrade guidance later on this year. Also both CEO and CFO have massive number of shares and they're probably more interested in buybacks (that's a guess, nothing more).
I3E vs Petrotal: This year, CAPEX is much higher @ PTAL, which makes up most of the difference (there are other points; trading in WTI, tax, etc, but CBA going into depth with that :) Also IMO I3E is more about acquisitions etc (like #VLE) while #PTAL is about building a fluid factory and maximising/optimising production (IDK why they haven't done more with Osheki - blows my mind - but I guess management comfort zones are just different). There certainly are different macro/environmental issues where they operate, but in a normal year (i.e. not too many disruptions) PTAL is the better cash machine by far. (I hold both, but 15x in PTAL).
New wells have a payback time less than 2 months btw. Decline is not a big issue (if interested browse presentations for more info on that); distribution is (more barges, Manolo!).
Investor warrants (61 million IIRC) should expire in Q2 IIRC.

A bit to the safe (/soft?) side re. production guidance. But at least we get more storage and more barges (?). A bit more CAPEX than I thought @ 3 oil wells. After debt we should at least have 100 million USD returned to shareholders; that's around 0.14 CAD per share or a yield around 20%, though free cashflow from op's is just 55 mio. USD.
I think they'll surprise to the upside during 2023, however it's a soft guidance IMHO and I wonder how much SP action we'll get before bonds and warrants are finally gone. (OFC reserve update next month should also move the needle!).

It could even be the 16th :)
18th before London opens at the latest IMO. We'll know soon enough :)

Round trip takes 60 days and they're trying to optimize this - hitting 50 days - according to the latest presentation. But that's just a question of having enough barges... ONP is totally unreliable and money is coming in just as slow as the oil (8 months+, sigh) so not being dependent on ONP would be the way to go. In reality we should receive a premium for selling to Talara! Connecting Bretana to pump station 1 (<55 miles) would probably be the better technical/logistical solution, but it's Peru and in the jungle :D) - so more barges. Not enough barges leaves us with hickups in productions, so that's what we're seing now, I think (like they suggested in the latest RNS).

Around the 20K promised production (fiscalized) - bodes well. Despite 12H pump still not turned on. Not even 2 weeks before we get the next update + 2023 Capex program (I hope they're not too aggressive at Bretana since ROIC drops if they're pushing facilities above 26K BOPD, but getting on with their other prospects would be nice. More storage would be nice though).

Newboots - I think more people would be interested in knowing how you only came up with 25-30 million. How does your calculations look....

Maybe the 1 CAD mid Jan is a bit optimistic, however there's several triggers. Mid feb, we get the next reserve update (everybody knows that's another upgrade) and we might have 1 more well online. So if we haven't hit 1 CAD by then... Ofc. it's Peru, but still despite all the obstacles PTAL has produced a lot of oil this year.

I like the idea of quarterly or maybe even monthly divs? 50 mio. USD or more in 2023 dividends should be NP considering 17.500 BOPD @ 90 brent is smt. like 200 million in FCF. Shareholders would get faster compounding from buybacks though, especially at the low P/E numbers PTAL is trading at. (when the f.....ing 61 million investor warrants are gone!).

Yes, would be really nice to get an update before Xmas. So this week.
Also, (fiscalized) production numbers are showing 33.5K BOO the 15th, so that should prove that the blockade is gone.
High uncertainty in Peru ATM, and ****ty continuous dilution (greedy management & weak board) - still I hope we're breaking 1 CAD when the Q4 update is here in mid January. One month of stabile production >20K, payments from PetroPeru, concrete news about bond repayment and great 12H news should do that (60p, so +50%... maybe optimistic.. might need a little help from Mr. Brent to crush 1 CAD).

After the disgraceful behavior from Englands fans during Euro 2020... does that mean we (shareholders) are like the fans?
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12040/12352908/euro-2020-fa-fined-25-630-by-uefa-for-england-fans-shining-laser-at-denmarks-kasper-schmeichel-and-other-disturbances
Not sure shareholders deserved the big dilution. But 100% sure the three lions dont get my vote for a long time.

Increasing payments "on paper" doesn't solve the issue. Signing of the agreement is the issue. It's the constitution in Peru that seems to pose some challenges, since it doesn't really allow a small community to benefit more/most from natural resources since they belong to the state. So it's a law/legal issue first of all.
Waving the bank account money in front of the community and planning how it will be used is IMO more efficient in providing pressure to Jimmy and his criminal henchmen. They must be running low on local support by now.

With payments from PetroPeru they can easily pay the bond. There's also (sadly) a bunch of investor warrants expiring mid 2023, which will also add 11.5 million USD in cash (and there's still 2.4 million barrels in ONP/storage which we have received partial payment for).
Social disturbances is just the name of the game. PTAL even expects and budgets with +10% downtime. So this is just business as usual in Peru. If it upsets your stomach, put PTAL on /ignore. It's not going to change anytime soon (though I believe it's slowly improving). Regardless of social issues (and whatever PTAL has endured in 2022) free cashflow (after 100 mio. USD Capex!) is still nearly 200 million in 2022. So... cry all the way to the bank, if you can stomach the volatility - else just skip this stock @trueinvest.

It does feel/look like we're having much faster progress on Cascadura since the EIA than most expected and certainly faster progress than Coho had.
But you all know this and watching from the sideline is a choice you're free to take.
If you want to guess, then guess what small news it would take to lift the SP. Even small news like "pads cured and assembly have started" might trigger movement, despite it's not an "if" but a "when".
Volume is very small these days. A few big buyers will be enough to move the needle.
DYOR.

Free forward cashflow from half cascadura at 80% and half coho (so net TXP) gives a market cap of 300-350 million £ at P/E 7. That's 1.6£ per share. That's with zero liquids and just for ½ coho + ½ cascadura.
IMHO there's no point in swingtrading and timing this. Buy & hold is the winner. Doesn't matter much in the long game if it's up mid Q1 or mid Q2. Then add value for liquids and the other half + prospects + legacy if you're still in doubt about the potential. It will be a completely different company end of 2024 - that's just 2 years from now and you've got extremely good odds of beating the market *3 or more just from buying and holding.
DYOR as they say.