PVR / LOGP24 Sep 2018 08:28
Align research note;
News released on Thursday last week detailing the final terms of the farm in with the Chinese consortia APEC Energy & the consequent drill program at Barryroe was, as is ever the case with PVR, met with a seemingly muted response by the market. On Friday however it looked as if the “penny was beginning to drop” ref the implications for Providence Resources and the wider Atlantic margin basin with the stock picking up on decent volume. As an aside, market intelligence has revealed that a perpetual ongoing seller that has “sat on the stock price” for many, many months is now effectively cleared. When coupled with the company’s fundamentals, we expect the stock price to, finally, begin to reflect a modicum of the true value in the portfolio of licences as the countdown to Barryroe drilling begins next year.
The revised deal incorporates additional drilling (four instead of three and two additional potential wells dependent upon drill results) which has been estimated at upto $200m in value. Set against a market cap of circa just $100m and a residual interest of 40% in the post farm in Barryroe field, this figure alone should illustrate the magnitude of the prize that the consortia see within Barryroe and the glaring disconnect in value ref the current PVR stock price as APEC clearly are not committing $200m without seeing upside of many times this.
The cash receipt of $19.5m also illustrates how the balance sheet of PVR is being preserved with the prospect of a capital raise pre any Barryroe drill results now pretty much non-existent from what we can see, particularly set against the warrants that APEC have over 59.2m shares with a strike of 12p for 6 months post completion of the drill program. Incidentally, in the event of their exercise this would position APEC with just under 10% of the company. We do not believe this is a coincidence and the resultant stake would provide an ideal platform in our view, in the event of successful drilling, a likely potential wholesale swallowing of the company (more on this later).
Let us remind ourselves of the key elements of the APEC farm in deal:
There are no upfront nor actual drill period capital costs (the costs being defrayed pending actually putting Barryroe into production by way of, most importantly, a non recourse loan structure for the drill costs).
PVR retains a 40% residual interest.
The drill program comprises 4 vertical wells and 1 horizontal sidetrack together with 2 potential further horizontal wells.
Cash payment of $19.5m to PVR.
We have previously valued the Barryroe field net to PVR (138.5m boe) at circa $2 per barrel if moved to 2P status (from 2C) and which equates to approx 35p per share at the current FX rate. However, one of the major elements of this drill program is to prove up additional resources in the Wealden basins. Estimates run up to 3bn barrels of oil with recoverable amounts of upto 624m. Should this b