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Could we get an SPA on another acquisition as well and perhaps an admission document covering an all encompassing acquisitions wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility

An article in french don't have access to all the article as it requires subscription

https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1432852/economie/pourquoi-le-tchad-et-savannah-energy-se-fachent-autour-du-rachat-desso/

Just the headline translates to - Chad, Savannah Energy and the controversy over the takeover of Esso
If the Paris International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitrated in favor of the British junior, N'Djamena disputes "a coup" and refuses to give in to "pressure".

Anyone been in touch with IR recently ?

You could be right Zengas the chad situation can't have helped timelines in terms of the admission document as i am sure the all inclusive admission document will have to revise how chad acquisition is represented in the documents on re-listing. With 9 weeks to go you would like to hope that they are getting very close to releasing the admission document, one would hope we should receive something in April or early may.

Good Spot Zengas - I would like to know whether they have taken it down as a matter of precaution or is there more to it. It would be interesting to hear from savannah whether they are going to keep challenging for the production fields and the chad portion of the pipeline or if they are happy to walkway with just Cameroon piece of the pipeline, as they did mention that they were going to take the case to the ICC so wonder if there has been developments since perhaps we are going to walkway from the doba field if there are other easier deals which are easier to complete replacing the potential 11,000 bopd per day and the 2p and 2c reserves which we would have acquired as part of the full acquisition, If we are to walk away there would have to be comprehensive comms from savannah highlighting what happens to the exxon pre-payment facility and also how that affects the headline price of the acquisition in the case of us just having the Cameroon pipeline without the doba oil production and it's associated reserves.

Part 2

Perenco lies in wait

This stand-off could further complicate Savannah Energy's already tense relations with the Chadian authorities. The state continues to evoke Perenco as a strong alternative option. The French-British junior could position itself as a potential candidate for taking over some of the Doba fields. A draft bill justifying the nationalisation of ExxonMobil's assets, sent to the National Transition Council's finances committee in March, specifies that "Savannah does not have the financial or technical capacities to efficiently keep operating the Chadian pipeline". It adds that the transaction was done "unilaterally, without the government's approval", and, as such, renders the sale invalid.

Savannah Energy is still fighting SHT before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), to which it filed for arbitration against the Chadian state company in December. SHT suspended ExxonMobil's sale of its assets to Savannah by two Chadian court decisions, the first on 14 December and the second on 25 January (AI, 03/02/23). It expelled a dozen Savannah employees in December.

A battalion of lawyers

For its defence, Savannah Energy turned to the Parisian branch of US law firm Quin Emmanuel, led by Thomas Voisin, which ExxonMobil frequently used the services of while it was still operating the Doba fields.

To tackle its most pressing issue, Savannah Energy initiated an emergency arbitration procedure with the ICC, which ruled on 7 January on the legality of the 14 December ruling (AI, 10/01/23). Arbitrator Phillip Landolt, from the Geneva-based law firm Landolt & Koch, ruled that the N'Djamena court did not have the jurisdiction to issue the said ruling but did not take further steps to unblock the situation and Savannah's employees can still not return to Chad. The standard arbitration procedure is not expected to produce a verdict for several more months.

N'Djamena justifies ExxonMobil asset nationalisation at Savannah Energy's expense

The Chadian Ministry of Hydrocarbons is still trying to make ExxonMobil pay a hefty leaving fee, and has produced a highly critical report of the running of the wells that the US major sold to Savannah Energy in December. Those wells have now been nationalised.

The Chadian state is on a roll. First it issued a decree on 23 March to pass ExxonMobil's assets into the hands of the national oil company Société des Hydrocarbures du Tchad (SHT), including its shares in the Doba fields, despite Savannah Energy having bought a 40% share of those in December. Now, the authorities are ramping up efforts to have the US major pay a large departure bonus.

A document titled "Report on the reconnaissance mission of wells abandoned by EEPCI [Esso Exploration & Production Chad Inc]", should help them make their case. Produced by the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and finalised in early March, it examines the status of wells that ExxonMobil put into production and then abandoned between 2003 (first year of production) and 2022.

Bemadjiel v. Exxon

The document, which Africa Intelligence has seen, purports that some of the 1,049 wells drilled by the major have been vandalised. Mahamat Allafouza Toke Treya, director of the ministry's drilling department, adds that "the dismantlement of power cables to the wells has exasperated these acts of vandalism" and that "urgent action is needed to save the Komé oil site". He writes, "it is strongly recommended that the highest level of power takes the right and sufficient steps to stop similar situations happening in the future. It must be noted that some wells that have been left abandoned for over ten years have still not been blocked."

Petroleum Minister Djerassem Le Bemadjiel will be sure to harness the report's conclusions against ExxonMobil, which is seen as responsible for leaving the Doba region in this state. The minister's strategy is to continue to apply pressure on the US major, even though the last of ExxonMobil's staff left the country on 9 December (AI, 16/12/22), the day it announced it was selling the sites to Savannah Energy. Junta leader Mahamat Idriss Déby and his transitional government are determined to make ExxonMobil pay a hefty leaving fee. The US group is willing to pay $25m, but the government is asking for $166m. Since no consensus has been reached, ExxonMobil has so far made no payments.

Apologies MR B i seemed to have clearly missed it

Looks like south sudan deal still going ahead from what African Energy is reporting. Probably news due in the next few weeks one would hope

UK independent Savannah Energy is moving forward with a $1.25bn plan to acquire a string of upstream assets in South Sudan from Malaysia’s Petronas – a rare case of an IOC stepping into one of Africa’s most challenging political and economic environments.

UK independent Savannah Energy’s bid to acquire the South Sudan assets of Malaysia’s Petronas, announced in December, is expected to move ahead as planned, with completion due in H1 2023. African Energy understands the expropriation of Savannah’s upstream assets in Chad should not affect the deal, as financing for the South Sudan deal is ring-fenced.

Savannah is aiming to buy stakes in three joint operating companies (JOCs), which operate Block 3/7 (with a 40% working interest) Block 1/2/4 (30%) and Block 5A (67.9%). These stakes are held by the Malaysian national oil company’s local affiliate Petronas Carigali Nile (AE 475/26).

Other major partners in the JOCs include the other major players in South Sudan: China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), India’s ONGC and national oil company Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet).

There has so far been only limited disclosure about the details of Savannah’s $1.25bn South Sudan deal, although a fuller picture may emerge in coming months as more documents are published, including a competent persons report and a detailed valuation of the assets.

Savannah appears to have strong cashflows from some of its other assets which should underpin its position. One analyst told African Energy they viewed the company’s debt position as “entirely manageable going forward, given existing cash flows coming out of Nigeria, which are performing strongly, as well revenues they will be getting out of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, which is not affected by recent news.”

Komakino - I would assume that they would need to provide an update on chad prior to the admission document, because the content and the numbers in the admission document would change if they are completely omitting the chad assets with south sudan completion. It wouldn't surprise me if the admission document takes slightly longer also i would imagine it would need to jump through a lot of reviews from brokers nominated advisors, to their legal team etc etc........ So they are probably waiting to see how it plays out first or if they get any indication from the chad government on their next move.

Komakino - In summary which is what my previous post alluded too, nationalizing oil assets is not that simple especially for chad who have not had an operatorship role in any of their oil fields. In order to build up a state run company strong enough to legitimately take operatorship doesn't happen overnight, as the assets were nationalised last Wednesday so does that mean they stormed the field of Doba on Thursday and physically take control probably not otherwise it would have been reported.

As per the article you posted option 1 and 2 are more likelier of the 2, i don't believe the chad government want operatorship as they would need to build that capability which takes time plus they dont have the expertise, I do believe they might want to re-negotiate terms perhaps increasing their share in the doba field , whilst savannah maintains operatorship. So perhaps Savannah may need to reduce their 40% stake to let's say 30% stake which seems more of a likely outcome.

If however savannah is currently not hampered operationally and this nationalisation has not affected us in practice than savannah will not be willing to reduce their stake and will be more than happy to let this go to courts whilst still continue to enjoy the revenues till the outcome of the courts.

I was doing a bit of research and here is my take on chad nationalisation of assets:

It would not be legally or operationally possible for Chad to enforce the nationalization of Exxon Mobil's oil assets prior to a legal ruling or settlement agreement, without risking a violation of international law and potential legal consequences. In the absence of a legal ruling or settlement agreement, any attempt by Chad to enforce nationalization of Exxon Mobil's oil assets would likely be considered unlawful and potentially subject to legal challenges or international condemnation.

Operatorship of oil assets involves a complex set of technical, operational, and financial responsibilities, which are typically governed by contractual agreements between the parties such as other partners like Petronas on the doba project as well as other companies in the value chain. If Chad were to nationalize Exxon Mobil's oil assets, the contractual agreements governing will automatically be voided meaning new re-negotiation terms and contracts would have to be put in place.

Another question that many have asked is whether chad has to abide by any international ruling the general answer is they would probably be enforced to as they are a party to New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, which is a multilateral treaty that provides a framework for the recognition and enforcement of international arbitration awards.

I am not saying the above would be true it's just based on my research so hence I have always said we would need to hear from the horses mouth i.e savannah how this affects us on the ground and whether our operations would continue as it is until formal ruling by the ICC.

Now that we are in April, and if the south sudan deal is still to proceed than you would hope that we are now in the comms window sweet spot, let's see how the next few weeks progress in terms of newsflow

MR B - Knowing how savannah have been aggressive in deal making it wouldn't be surprising if Savannah Energy go for more acquisitions which could easily negate any chad deal impact. We have had previous reports through africa intelligence that we were after Eni production in Tunisia which I believe is 5,000 bopd, or Petronas Egypt production which is about 20,000 bopd, so we could see a few more SPA announcements probably after south sudan if it goes through that would easily replace the 11,000 bopd chad production, and if it's done post south sudan than no suspension will be required.

MR B - I suppose Shore capital has reiterated what I have been saying which is Savannah suspended price already took into account Chad execution risk, so effectively wasn't pricing in the deal at all.

Mr B - I think the chad situation is a bit blurry but we haven't lost out yet. At some point the Savannah will have to clarify what nationalising of oil assets mean operationally. i.e. who is paying esso chad employee salaries, who is receiving the oil receipts and cargoes etc etc, as with all chad government announcements the finer detail has been woolly and they have failed to highlight the how operationally they are nationalising the asset, for instance i would have expected the chad government to say they have taken over the field etc etc. The announcements seem to me like they are in no mans land neither hear or there. So as the saying goes i like to say "can you follow the pound" if the pound is still going to savannah than it's just a case of back and forth on the media until it gets resolves at ICC, but the current operational structure remains the same.

Let's hope savannah are able to share the implications of what this new announcement means right down to the penny so to speak

Anyone been in touch with IR recently ?

Personally I am not expecting the admission document to land prior to Easter Monday bank holiday which is April 10th, next week is another short week with good Friday so interesting to see now that the timelines are getting tighter as we get into Q2. Also April being a relatively short month will take us into May pretty quickly which also has a few bank holidays…………..

One thing is as we bought the asset from Exxon they are still probably party to certain terms of the deal and also they provided us with $170 payment facility, So with Exxon being still on the hook and being an American company might use influence of the US government to issue sanctions which could mean that they are in breach of certain agreements under world bank and IMF funding, so it's pleasing to in some sense to know that Exxon will be tied to this saga as well, if our revenue from Doba stops than effectively Exxon will not get there debt paid, all typical debt arrangement will have certain safety arrangement in place and I am sure it's the same when savannah would have agreed to the arrangement that they would have built in some protection as well.

Zengas - yes agreed it’s an inconvenience although savannah still has to clarify to the market what nationalising the Chad assets mean, i.e. are we affected operationally and this financially as that’s the key, we all know that since completion in December it was just a case of back and forth and us not being impacted financially with the oil proceeds continuing to flow through.

I would suspect that they would have to cover updates on all assets as part of the admission document so hopefully we we will get some more context in terms of what it means on the ground.

In terms of South Sudan yes that is a game changer deal if it comes in as it will double our production and potentially triple our 2p reserves. Hopefully South Sudan is well advanced and can finally get us to the market value we truly deserve, also if we still continue to benefit from revenues after the current chad stance than there is still value in that too, not to mention the Niger pipeline completion.

So plenty of opportunities for savannah and Andrew to garner market confidence he just has to deliver on all.

What I find interesting is that the Eni deal stalled in Tunisia because of stagnant government before we evened signed SPA. All the deals have some pre government discussion prior to moving to SPA as no one wants to waste time pursuing an asset that will be declined sign off. It would be a similar case with South Sudan. So hopefully sounding optimistic if they wanted to stall our deal they would have done it by now, why drag it out for even longer, and than reject deal. Also with South Sudan there has been a complete comms blackout from the South Sudan government no one has commented on the deal from government so it will be interesting to see how this plays out. It could mean that they want to control proceedings and timeline to match the South Sudan oil conference or it could mean something else.

Perhaps the whole reason for the delayed admission doc and re-listing is to narrow the timeline between re-admission, completion of South Sudan assets and formal government sign off.

As for the SP I believe most of savannah is held by institutions so major shift it SP would be driven by them selling off but if they are on board with savannah strategy than we would have been at our suspended share price without chad, I don’t believe the so was pricing in chad anyway prior to our suspension. Whereas if you go back a few more months to a June 2022 where I believe we were close to highs of 40p was probably a true price reflection of chad + accugas combined value.