Member Info for xxnjr

I'm surprised the guy from Gabon is still running Tullow Ghana.

hTTps://www.tullowoil.com/media/press-releases/tullow-announces-leadership-changes-ghana/

Wissam Al-Monthiry was really high calibre (IMO). With all due respect to the new guy I can't imagine someone who was running the non-operated business in Gabon is of the same calibre as Wissam.

In the good old days TLW FY Results were announced either 1st, or 2nd week of February. The later they get the worse the company performs!

There will be a Kosmos Q&A. It's usually at either 3pm, or more usually 4pm UK time depending on clocks as will be broadcast 11:00 AM US EST.

The fact that Tullow were unable to secure a farm in partner to drill Jamaica after many years of trying suggests the rest of the E&P industry didn't buy the hype.

StanleyPro,

Tullow accepted an ave of 89.334% on their most recent offer to tender for 2026 notes

hTTps://www.tullowoil.com/media/press-releases/result-offer-2026-notes/

Hence I think they could be happy to see the 26's weaken a touch and assuming they have any spare cash (a rather large 'if'!) then tender for a buyback of a nominal amount but in reality that would just be tinkering around the edges.

Antonvb,

The difference with the 26's is that Tullow cannot repay them at maturity as we all know. So I think in that scenario it would be expected to refinance them well ahead of maturity in the normal course of events but I take your point about waiting for possible further SOFR rate easing.

[Sorry I put this on the wrong thread so I'll repeat here]

The bond markets (2025: 98.4% & 2026: 89.4%) seem to be believing TLW will settle the '25's first then refinance the 2026's later. If that happens the 2026's could weaken further possibly opening up a partial bond buy back offer at around 90%? (Bonds are a bit of a mystery to me in these circumstances.)

The bond markets (2025: 98.4% & 2026: 89.4%) seem to be believing TLW will settle the '25's first then refinance the 2026's later. If that happens the 2026's could weaken further possibly opening up a partial bond buy back offer at around 90%? (Bonds are a bit of a mystery to me in these circumstances.)

Thats true.

Tullow's debt is in denominated in USD. SOFR which has dropped from 5.3% to 4.3% over the past year is perhaps more relevant? The Glencore loan was taken out at (SOFR + 10%) in Nov 2023. So thats come off from 15.3% to a still steep 14.3%. But as Flavius says the interest on refinancing the 2026's will be critical as higher interest could potentially absorb some of future assumed FCF.

Would have thought there will be some decline antonvb. It's just a question of; how much? TEN decline last year stabilised somewhat but I think that is because production from those fields is past its peak. Jubilee OTOH has had a lot of new wells drilled. Production is higher up the decline curve ( relatively nearer peak than tail vs TEN) so you'd perhaps anticipate "production optimisation" activities would be less effective in stemming decline (as new wells tend to initially have steeper decline curves). I've never worked in Oil & Gas by the way so just my layman's opinion.

Hi antonvb,

TEN finished 1 cargo offload which I'm assuming half filled a VLCC yesterday with the tanker now sitting near the 'Jubilee Waiting Area' that is about 35kms NE of J fpso, so I'm thinking this VLCC may collect another half cargo from Jubilee on/or about the 22nd Feb (or It may just sail somewhere else). Previous J cargos were 4/1, 16/1, 29/1, 10/2. My dates being (hook-up date + 1 day) as it typically takes about 27 to 30 hrs to load an average cargo of 955,000 (Jubilee) or 995,000 (TEN). Anyway to answer your Q Jubilee tanker timings intervals suggest Jan was kind of similar to Dec, perhaps a tad lower. TEN loading intervals don't really tell us much as they are less frequent.

Perhaps worth pointing out that when the previous CFO retired, RM was made Interim CFO pending a permanent CFO who turned out to be RM himself.

hTTps://www.tullowoil.com/media/press-releases/directorate-change-appointment-richard-miller-chief-financial-officer/

It was actually more complicated than that and a right Rahul mess. TLW had the existing CFO (with the scottish accent) who was supposed to be replaced with the CFO from Enquest, but then Rahul decided to merge with Capricorn with the latter's CFO becoming the merged entities CFO which left the guy from Enquest (who had already announced his resignation) up the swanny, but then Capricorn shareholders voted against the deal stumping the Capricorn CFO and after all the confusion the internal "interim" was given the position. It turned out to be a good choice.

Supercooper,

Sorry! "RI = rights issue." You can tell that such an event wasn't on my radar.

Weak SP, as others have argued, would have thought precluded an RI.

We are far from the good old days like in 2010 when TLW were able to easily raise $1.45bn through a heavily over subscribed placing of 80.4m shares!

Hi Supercooper,

Well assuming Kenya delivers little in the way of up front cash then it's going to be more of the same. A long hard slog to reduce the debt. Accelerated debt reduction from asset disposals sounds plausible. Not sure how much that could bring in though? and post any deals less production means less operating cashflow going forwards.

Inorganic growth and Capital Returns? Well that was from Rahul, wasn't it? Talk is cheap. Rahul hasn't really delivered on any of the production upsides he highlighted. So I'd take that with a pinch of salt. At least in the medium term. FCF at $80 is (apparently) $150m going forwards before disposals. Surely they will need all of that to continue to reduce the debt year on year? Given that I can't really see any scope for Capital Returns any time soon. And unless it's a very creative deal there doesn't appear to be any cash for bolt ons either!

And does it really make sense to sell down then bulk back up? More money lost to the advisors!

The only hope I have is that the new 4D seismic reveals some easy tie back ILX opportunities that can quickly be brought into production.

At the moment we are in a period of drift. Things may become clearer once the 25's are repaid and '24 Results come out. I think Richard will be more open and transparent and less prone to over promising on the upsides.

Sorry..... what do you mean by 'RI'?

Antonvb,

".....as Kenya was looking likely. I think if it wasn’t for the change of government it would have happened."

With respect I don't really think that was the issue. The main issue AFAIUI is that the project just isn't economic. FWIW this is what google AI returns:-

'The Tullow Oil project in Kenya is widely considered not economically viable due to a combination of factors including high development costs, a lack of strategic partners, the need for a significant investment in infrastructure like a pipeline, and concerns about the financial capacity of Tullow itself to fund the project, leading to the Kenyan government rejecting their field development plan citing insufficient financial backing to fully commercialize the oil reserves. '

Supercooper,

None of us know what really happened. I also think Rahul was eased out. Probably by institutional shareholders suggesting he leave. I imagine there was a board meeting after the Nov 28th trading update where it and other matters were put to the vote. I'm assuming Richard (CFO) voted against RD, which would explain (at least in my tiny head!) why the arbitration win RNS, which one would expect to include a comment from the CFO, didn't. Rahul took all the credit, which was a bit odd. There was also the mysterious leak about the apparent 'preliminary' talks with Kosmos, which turned out to be 'very preliminary' according to a somewhat surprised Kosmos. That may suggest the 'leak' came from Tullow? I wonder who? Anyway it seems the powers that be wanted RD out ASAP. Would imagine the drivers of above were the production numbers from Ghana rather than Kenya.

Rahul did say words to the effect that "Kenya will either happen, or it won't". It's looking more like the latter. Otherwise why would he be leaving (as others have said). On balance I would imagine an incoming CEO is more likely to write off Kenya as a full field export pipeline development, perhaps leaving a small scale trucking operation on the table for possible future development. Or just write off the whole thing assuming they can't sell it for $1 + production based contingent payments!

Blame Rahul for talk about dividends! I know the CEO is supposed to paint things in a positive light but sometimes I think Rahul perhaps just went too far. I'm not really anticipating divis anytime soon, nor anything substantive happening in Kenya (notwithstanding some party possibly taking Kenya off our hands).

HTTps://www.rystadenergy.com/news/upstream-breakeven-shale-oil-inflation

Shale oil seems reasonably competitive according to the above.

And unlike in the past, carbon intensity is much more competitive these days at 14 kilograms of Co2 per barrel of oil equivalent. That is about 1/3rd of the emissions rate from Tullow Ghana which sadly has extremely high Co2 emissions due to flaring approx 50mmscfd of gas every day.

Total Energies are budgeting for $70 oil over 2025 (acknowledging OP could be higher at times which would bring more cash). Seems fairly sensible to me as opposed to Rahul's past unrealistic assumptions of perma $80 to $90 oil. PP of Total said demand growth from India was taking up the slack from China.