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The longer this drags on the more I'm thinking that the original RNS on 11 March was premature. Press speculation is a regular feature of corporate life & I'd have thought an announcement could have been delayed until there was more certainty regarding the bidder's financial position. There was little or no share price movement prior to 11 March to have triggered an RNS.

Looking at Serica's presentation slides we don't seem to get anything more on Skerryvore than we already know. Slide 54 states that 'plans are advancing to drill the well in 2027'. Good to see it's in the Execute phase as Serica defines it but more patience required. I'm prepared to wait.

No one will thank me for reminding them of this but in Nov 23, at the time of the announcement of the farm-out to Serica, first production from Buchan was forecast for late 2026!. Now with this clueless PM & net zero zealot in charge there is no investment, jobs, energy security, lower carbon emissions (compared to imported oil & gas) and of course no tax revenues for the foreseeable future. It is an utter disgrace and sadly there's probably not much we can do about it until there's a general election.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Hard to know what to wish for this morning. Starmer, and Reeves, are great assets for Reform (& others to be honest) & you'd want to be fighting a general election with them still in their posts. Trouble is you don't want them limping on for the next 3 years with their net stupid zero policies etc. Farage reckons there will be a general election in 2027 - let's hope he's right.

BP giving up on the North Sea, if that’s what they decide, & moving their primary listing to the US is what that d*** head Milliband deserves. Not that he’ll worry but there’s plenty who will.

URI currently up over 10% after hours on strong Q1 & raised full year expectations.

We can but hope that Miliband eventually wakes up & smells the coffee. I see even the CEO of RenewableUK supports the extraction of North Sea O&G! How many times does he need to be told the same thing??

Thanks DU & welcome back, we’ve missed this sort of detailed commentary. Superb.

Upstream Online reporting that government actively discussing early end to windfall tax. Another u turn on the cards & a very welcome one!

Ed who?? As for nothing doing for 2 years I disagree. The market doesn’t work like that, it will go up in anticipation of something happening & that should be a lot sooner than 2 years (says this glass half full JOG shareholder).

Not sure how far the share price will drop tomorrow morning following this after hours RNS. Hopefully not too far as GS buying all 1.5m shares but I guess there will now be an overhang until GS has onward sold shares it does not intend to keep.

Reported in The Telegraph & another nail in the coffin of net zero!

Screwing the O & G sector whilst the likes of Barclays are promising to return £15bn to shareholders. You couldn’t make it up with this useless government. Nige will get it sorted, hopefully we won’t have to wait 3 years.

Don't despair, according to Sky Bet there are 4 other candidates ahead of Millipede. Whether any of them will help JOG shareholders is another matter.

LTH but don’t normally post. Comcast reporting this Thurs & will be interesting to see what they have to say if anything about talks with ITV. Apologies if this is old news.

William Bain is Head of Trade Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce & yes I’d never heard of him before either.

Thanks for the link to the call. I'm with Couerdelion i.e. they are currently looking at development options for Buchan (similar to what AB said in his corporate update) & so it is too early to say where Buchan sits in it's list of opportunities. What he didn't say of course is we might not do this project. I guess CT might have his own agenda for the slant he's putting on the call but it doesn't wash with me.

Yes, very pleasing. The scars from previous updates where a delay was implied was behind my nervousness! Happy to be wrong :)

Words such as ‘taking the time now’ for example. I’m not being critical of the update I just think it’s telling the market there’s a longer time horizon until we see the fruits of the investment. As I say if I’m wrong with the way the market reads this I’ll be delighted.

I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think the market is going to particularly welcome this corporate update. To me a longer investment cycle is another way of saying a further delay albeit for the very good reason of taking time to decide on the best way forward. As always with JOG patience is required.