Member Info for ZYX098

Nikb mentioned a couple of them;

Landman - big picture is pretty rubbish, but a lot of the small details are reasonably accurate, like crews queuing up at 5am to get coffee from a booth staffed by bikini clad women. Layoffs being sudden and brutal. Spending as if there was no tomorrow during the good times.

And if the US oil field had to get rid of everyone who'd been divorced and/or in jail, there wouldn't be many left...

Deepwater Horizon - gets me so mad I've never made it to the end. In the US it essentially portrayed itself as an accurate account of what happened on the Rig. The misrepresentation of how a Rig works, what happened and the treatment of the BP personnel as almost cartoonish caricatures....yeah....

Armageddon - the technical stuff is complete rubbish. The Rig characters on the other hand, the way they behave and interact is very accurate. When it came out on DVD I made my family sit down and watch it, because these are the sort of people I have to deal with.

Every.

Single.

Day.

Hi Ovets,

Navitas aren't the Operator for Shenandoah - that's Beacon, and a very good job they did too.

Hopefully Navitas were taking copious notes!

https://worldoil.com/news/2026/2/5/shenandoah-highlights-advances-in-ultra-high-pressure-deepwater-production/?oly_enc_id=5801J6403578F0Z

Whether you like it or not, a supply chain that long is problematic, as is coordinating equipment and personnel that will undoubtedly come from many different places - not just ABZ as some appear to be assuming.

Planning the equipment and mobilisation of the materials for the causeway is childsplay compared to getting SL up and running.

That's why it is vital to have people with the correct experience in senior positions, so they are familiar with and therefore can anticipate the problems that extended supply chains can and do bring.

According to World Oil, the current US Rig count is just under 550. At its peak, it was around 4,000 but in recent times it's generally been around the 1,000 mark.

US Shale production is forecast to - if anything - slightly decline over the next year and then start to fall significantly after that, as essentially nearly all the major Shale basins are in now in decline. Many are beginning to be restricted by ancillary issues such as induced seismicity, produced water disposal constraints (and costs) and new Regulations.

At the moment, nearly all Shale drilling is just to maintain production (as these Wells have a very steep decline curve), despite advances in technology meaning that 20,000' long laterals and fracing multiple Wells simultaneously are now routine.

My own view is that US Shale is unlikely to be able to significantly respond to even a large jump in oil price, as there are now many constraints in the system, including personnel, equipment and consumables (Casing etc) in addition to those I mentioned above.

Similar constraints also apply internationally - many Rigs have been scrapped or mothballed over the last decade and many experienced personnel have retired (a.k.a. "the great crew change") or got out of the industry altogether for the reasons explained by nikb.

The supply chain side of things has also gone to "just in time" which means it's now difficult to get projects up and running quickly, as there is limited availability "off the shelf".

nikb is correct in that there has been substantial underinvestment in finding and brining on new production for essentially a decade - we haven't been replacing production, never mind finding new reserves that will be needed as over 1 Billion people in the developing world reach "middle class" in the next decade.

The increasing power demands of AI are becoming a real problem as well

Pre-Covid, I saw estimates that at least $1 Trillion in spending was needed, just to catch up.

I've also heard the "this is our year" narrative for several years - but the can has just been kicked further down the road everytime - not helped by the "anti fossil fuel" narrative in the West which has seen many banks and Govts refuse to fund new O&G projects.

My big concern is that we suddenly find that we are actually in a cul-de-sac (possibly triggered by a 'black swan event') and the can cannot be kicked any further, leading to a massive spike in oil prices.

That doesn't do anyone any good and will crash the economies of many Countries.

A steady price rise of $5 - $10/bbl a year over the next few years can be coped with and my fingers are crossed that that is what we'll see.

Hi Tincan,

To expand on Mirasols post;

The gubbins at the top of the Well is in two main parts - the Wellhead and the Christmas (Production) Tree.

The Wellhead is installed after the Conductor is set and is used to hang the remaining casings in while drilling.

The Tree is usually installed onto the Wellhead after the Completion has been run (can be run before or with the Completion too). Sometimes it's done by the Rig, other times it's done by the Construction Vessel. Given the operational costs of the Rig, in this case it'll likely be done by the Construction Vessel when she arrives.

SL has three manifolds which need to be placed and anchored on the seabed; gas injection, oil production and water injection.

Each Well has to be connected to the appropriate manifold (fluid line, power, control, instrumentation) and then the manifold connected (again, fluid, power, control, instrumentation) to the FPSO. This work is all done by the construction vessel, which will also install the mooring system for the FPSO.

Since the regulations don't allow flaring, the gas injection manifold & Well(s) will have to be hooked up and tested prior to production commencing.

Theoretically, they could then hook up one production Well and start producing immediately, but the Construction Vessel itself isn't cheap and I understand that the Wells will be batch drilled and completed anyway.

So the likely sequence will be for the first batch of Wells to be drilled and completed, with the FPSO being timed to mobilise to the FI as the last couple of wells in this initial sequence are being done.

The construction vessel will be mobilised some time before the FPSO to get all the prep work done before the FPSO arrives.

Then begins the intricate dance of coordinating all the activities to ensure the most efficient sequence is kept, while also making sure that the vessels don't interfere with each other- especially the anchor patterns of the Rig and the FPSO and the various flowlines during Rig moves.

Given the length of the drilling program, I imagine that after the initial batch of Wells is hooked up, the Construction Vessel will be demobilised for several months and come back later to finish off the work.

As Mirasol said, it's all relatively routine and only really gets exciting when the schedule of one of the Rig/vessels gets out of kilter for some reason.

That's when the Field Manager has to really be on top of everything, as some stand up knock down rows can develop between the various groups as they all have conflicting requirements and all cost a shed load of money every day in their various ways!

CaptNemo,

Definitely give HL a call.

I'm with HL and my experience is the same as EG777's.

Split into 2 separate lines in my accounts.

The shares I got (basic entitlement and excess) were both credited about a week ago and I can trade them if I want.

I got 4.27% of the excess I applied for.

The other line item shows the rejected excess I applied for, and I'm still waiting for those funds to be credited back to my account.

That won't happen until RKH send the funds back to HL and since RKH should be getting around £6k pd in interest, I imagine that they'll hang onto the funds for as long as they can get away with!

World Oil do this annually,.

They usually start with general thoughts on World drilling & production trends, then go into more detail on each Region. They also often highlight "high impact" Exploration Wells.

https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/5214999/8BC6AE13A314BEF6C90A16BF4E64F6DB?partnerref=Email

Worth a watch, if you have nothing better to do!

Hi Paul,

Yes - new ID posting the same ramping nonsense on multiple boards - I reported it to Admin.

Hi Xmtman,

It's been known for quite a while that the Trees / manifolds / flowlines are being engineered and manufactured by Baker in Houston.

There's a big difference between a relatively short Exploration program (where, as you say, everything was brought from ABZ) and a multiyear development program which will require large amounts of equipment and consumables from all over the place - likely mostly Sing / UAE / Houston, as ABZ has been run down so much that there isn't much spare capacity these days.

Also a lot of the very experienced manpower that used to be in ABZ has either retired (the "Great crew change") or the machinations of IR 35 have sent them back Overseas.

From what colleagues up in ABZ are saying, many of the people that are left in ABZ don't have much O'Seas experience and are so process driven they lack the practical experience necessary for 'out of the box' thinking that remote location work often requires.

Also, while there are many Operators in ABZ who have UKCS operations and O'Seas operations, I can't think of one Operator who is based in ABZ, but only has O'Seas operations - until Navitas.

All the others are down South (e.g. RKH!!), mainly so they are near to the bankers. But it does also mean there is a surprisingly large pool of talent in the area (because of the close proximity to LHR & LGW) - most of whom are 'grey hairs' and have heaps of O'Seas experience.

Hi Ovets,

That's fair enough.

But there's a big difference between a share mentioned (with some reasoning) by a poster who is on here regularly, and one who has 13 posts with an ID made up today, posting the same mindless ramp on multiple boards.

We are a community and, TBH, there isn't going to be much real news on here until 1st Oil.

Yes, we should get notices about the FPSO going to the shipyard, the Rig being mobilised and spud of the 1st Well, but none of that will actually shift the share price other than for sentimental reasons.

As LdC points out, the LdC will see the share price move in a positive direction, but that's almost independent of actual news.

Nikb,

I think overall you are correct in that exploration / appraisal / development is lagging way behind potential demand..

But I've also heard the narrative that "this is our year" for about six years now, and I'm still waiting!

The oil price didn't budge when Trump did his thing in Venezuela, as the markets really don't expect that to have any effect.

But the markets are very nervous about his plans for Iran, hence the sharp rise in Brent in the last couple of days.

Those of us of a "certain age" can remember the disruption caused by the Iran - Iraq war in the 1980's, when tanker insurance rates went through the roof because both sides were laying mines in the Gulf.

Several tankers were hit by mines, though oddly enough their sheer bulk meant that usually little damage was caused - some weren't even sure they'd hit one until they got to the next Port!

Mind you, that was when there weren't any LNG carriers to speak of - one of them hitting a mine could be....interesting....

Hi nikb,

I'd steer clear of Shale drilling in the UK.

Even if it's proven to be economic (and we've not been allowed to do that yet), the factory style drilling that we see in the US simply isn't possible here - the planning system just wouldn't allow for it - when I last checked, it took an average of EIGHT years to get approval to drill a 'conventional' Well.

And that's never mind all the legal challenges and the likes of XR, JSO and Greenpeace doing stunts like 'slow walking' to obstruct vehicles and doing all they can to stop the operation.

It'll never happen with Mad Ed as energy secretary anyway.

I'm of the same general opinion as Paul.

Don't really like to push other shares, as my record is by no means 100% and this is the RKH share board.

Having said that, if you are interested have a look at Reconnaissance Energy Africa - mobilising kit to test a Well (Kavango West-1X, onshore Namibia) that - if it is good - will be a game changer for not only the Company, but the basin.

80 Mile PLC have fingers in a number of pies, but the one I'm interested in is the 2 Well Exploration program coming up in H2 this year in the Jameson Basin, Onshore Greenland.

Also Greenland is GreenRoc Mining. Very large, high quality Graphite resource which should be developed in the next few years, and they haven't touched the sides w.r.t. the Rare Earth potential of their license.

BUT!!!!!

DYOR!!!!

The Endeavour is a proper Rig - not some Prima Donna of a 7th Gen Drill-ship ;)

I don't think we should hang anything on the contract being nominally for 11 Wells. No doubt there will be multiple options built in.

Also, most contracts under those circumstances (i.e. single Rig in a remote area) will also have language built in to allow it to go to another Operator (e.g. Navitas on PL-001) if an agreement is reached between all the parties.

I’ve already posted elsewhere that I feel that she’ll go down sooner rather than later and drill a couple of Wells on PL-001, so that Navitas can work out which part of the block to keep.

But she is not kitted out for the SFB water depth, so that can be ruled out.

I think she’ll be ‘dry towed’ on a Heavy Lift Vessel. So, say 2 – 3 days to load and install the sea fastenings and 25 - 30 days (if no weather delays) down to the FI.

They’ll need to offload in sheltered waters (San Carlos? Falkland Sound?) before towing her back up to SL (or PL-001) and anchoring her up.

I don’t think Navitas are being that all cagey on announcing Contracts. For example, you don’t see the likes of BP/Shell making an announcement unless it’s a really big contract.

I suspect we are just used to AIM Minnows pumping out all the information they can to try and keep up the interest and share price.

But I’d like to see some Palestine Action people take on an oilfield crew. I know who my money would be on……

£$%%^^ - LSE lied about the number of characters left - again!

The last sentence should be;

But the scope for improvement will be huge!

whoops - getting carried away!

anyway - execution risk.

yes, there have been several wells drilled on sl already (i think 8-10 actually on the structure), which will have provided a lot of information..

which means that you are taking the information from 10 holes, each of which is 8 1/2" or 12 1/4" diameter, and extrapolating that information to a structure roughly 10km x 5km!

there is obviously no long term production information available in the area.

as a result you are - for example - estimating decline curves, don't know the potential (if any) effect of high permeability streaks in the sand (can cause early water breakthrough) or if the clays are mobile (can block up the pore throats) or if the sand screens have been optimally sized for the formation.

we also know that sl isn't a ****geneous sand - there are at least 3 different sand packages, of which the f1 & f2 are the ones going to be developed (at least in the beginning), so the techniques applicable for the f1 may need to be modified for the f2.

on the drilling side, all the production wells will be horizontal. the gas injection well will probably be vertical and the water injection wells likely to be highly inclined - if only to get them out to the locations required from the water injection manifold.

so far only one well in the sl area was deviated - and it was an abysmal failure.

nav (and prem before them) will have studied this and done a lot of geomechanics work to figure out what the best mud weight(s) to use are - both while building up to horizontal above the reservoir and also while horizontal in the reservoir.

but until that 1st horizontal well is drilled, they won't know for sure they've got the right model.

similarly, they'll have a good idea of the composition of the drill-in fluid to use (to prevent damaging the sands) and the 'breaker' fluid required to get all the drill in fluid back out once the completion has been run.

the completion is sand screens and gravel packing. so the mesh size of the sand screens and the size distribution of the gravel will have been modeled, but the proof will be in the pudding. or production....

how long a horizontal section is needed will also have been modelled. but on practice (after several months of production), they might find they don't need as much, or maybe need more to get the required production rates.

so many, many unknowns.

but these days the modelling is light years ahead of what it used to be, so they should be in the ball park.

after every well, they'll no doubt be holding aar's - in other words, what did we do right, what did we do wrong and what did we do right, but cold do better.

some operational changes can be made quickly - others may take more time to implement if they need different equipment or chemicals.

other changes required will only be identified once they've got some actual production data to use to verify their models.

but the scope for improvement wi

Hi Paul,

From my perspective, by far the biggest risk to the project start up is the drilling and completion side - both in planning and execution.

The other risks are very manageable.

For example, the requirements of producing and processing a waxy crude to an FPSO in quite hostile weather areas are well understood.

Equally, we know what the FPSO looks like now and know where we've got to get to, plus all the work being done in the shipyard means that - with proper planning and equipment sourcing - the risks should be minimal.

Logistics wise, the base being ready on time is also a risk - they should have started construction already to ensure that they are ready to accept equipment / consumables and also receive and get the Mud & Cement plants up & running. If it's going to be a little late, then we can work around that for a couple of Wells, but it would be a pain in the backside.

On the planning side, I am very concerned by a couple of decisions that were made in the latter half of 2025.

Firstly, the new Operations Manager (I've posted my thoughts about this position a couple of times before!). He has zero Overseas experience - never mind remote location, plus he has only worked in Aberdeen. Also, his LinkedIn profile doesn't show any project start-up experience either.

I've worked Overseas for more than 2 decades, often on remote location work and so know that both are absolutely necessary for someone in that position. He won't have the mindset required for all that planning for working in the FI entails, or an understanding of the things that can go wrong when mobilising equipment and materials from all around the World.

The Drilling (and Logistics) people working in the London office do have this background, and hopefully he will listen to them (although my experience of people with no experience when put into this sort of position is not good when it comes to the 'listening' part...).

Which brings me to another concern about the planning. I don't understand the decision to open an office in ABZ, when the people that they need to be talking with are all in the London office (and no, Teams meetings just don't cut it - been there....).

I suspect this is a consequence of the Ops Manager working all his life in ABZ - he wants to stay within his 'comfort' zone.

Which leads onto a further concern. In ABZ the business model for many years (especially for the smaller Operators) is to farm out everything they can to a body shop for technical work and the Service Company for planning and logistics - which is what Navitas appear top have done.

While that's fine for a small program on the UKCS, it's not for a multi-year program in a remote location.

NAV have taken on permanent Staff in London for all the other aspects. So why farm out to a body shop the very functions that you depend on the most, and who will be spending the largest share of the Budget?

Hi LTT,

He could also have been referring to Casper / Casper South?

Oddly, at this stage any gas production is a pain in the backside, because any that's not used by the FPSO as fuel has to be reinjected - legislation means it can't be flared off.

TAs you said, the JHI website shows several potential (presumably oil) targets and these may well be close enough to SL to consider for a tieback rather than a stand alone FPSO. It wouldn't make sense to go after PL001 just for Johnson at this stage in the game, especially since any gas development is at least a decade away.

I posted a thread earlier about the potential rig mobilisation timing and why I think it will be late this year. This is so NAV can drill a Well in PL001 and this they can keep (some of) the license. In which case RKH unfortunately just don't have the cash available to take part.

I agree that RKH will be a takeover target, but I can't see it being until around a year after 1st Oil.

RKH are a "one trick Pony" in that the NFB is all the prospective production they have.

They are a minority share in that Pony and also the Pony doesn't have any track history w.r.t. production in terms of flow rates / decline curves / potential issues with production or, indeed potential upside in that the Wells could flow better than modelled.

The Oil Industry is notoriously conservative and I feel that any suitor will want to see some production data to de-risk their exposure before making a bid, otherwise they are taking on a pile of debt which may come back to bite them if SL doesn't perform as expected.

And as paul said, ultimately this should be good for us PI's, as the share price will be more fully realised by then.

I don't know how amenable Gideon would be to someone coming for a slice of Navitas?

Although it's intriguing that BlackStone are thinking about selling Beacon, so maybe a swap of an interest in Beacon for an interest in Navitas could be on the cards?

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/blackstone-weighs-5-billion-sale-beacon-offshore-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-01-20/

Mirasol - my recollection of Johnson was the same - large gas column but poor net/gross ratio and what sands there were are of poor quality.

An LNG FPSO for that neck of the woods wouldn't leave any change out of $1.5 Billion and there's far more profit to be made in going after near SL Appraisal and Developments.

I still don't understand the fixation with Isobel - it's a decade away from being further appraised and we already know that the top 30% of the reservoir has poor permeability (from the kick that was taken).

Isobel wasn't even mentioned in the NSA report, although Liz was;

https://rockhopperexploration.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NSAI-Rockhopper-Sea-Lion-Report-2025-06-02.pdf

The RKH website itself shows why it's far more economical to go after the near SL prospects in the near future than it is to try for Isobel.

https://rockhopperexploration.co.uk/operations/falkland-islands/north-falkland-basin/#iLightbox[f724055c6bc4bd18df7]/0

Ovets - it's up to the FIG to develop the plan, as they are in the driving seat when it comes to license allocation in 2027. This will likely mean looking to bring in other Operators, as they won't want all their eggs in one basket - especially when that basket has one egg that is cash strapped until SL 1st Oil.

Hi Mirasol / MM,

Do either of you have a link to a map showing the complete area of the 3D coverage?

This is the best I could find (page 18) ;

https://rockhopperexploration.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Capital-Markets-Presentation-Technical.pdf

It appears to show substantial gaps in the coverage around the North & East of SL (does it cover the 'Jason' lead in PL033?), plus lack of coverage over the Isobel / Elaine area and PL001.

While the data quality of that vintage should be very good, I imagine it could do with re-processing (If Navitas haven't done so already) given the big advances in computing power and algorithms since then.

MM, IIRC, didn't you post some time ago that you wouldn't go back to the Isobel area without shooting more seismic?

Good point about the seal failure in 14/10-08 - MM I think you'd already posted about the sand deposits being fed from the East in at least part of the block?

I can easily see another 3D Survey vessel being mobilised once the results of the next licensing round are announced and other Operators get involved with their early phase commitments and I don't think there's any doubt that eventually a 2nd Rig will have to be mobilised to the ANFB to cover all the potential Exploration / Appraisal work.

RKH funding 35% of a $100 Million shoot is doable, I think.

Oh, nikb in case you missed it;

The reason why the OO was so small was an LSE rule (a hang over from when we were in the EU) that a Company couldn't issue more than the equivalent of 8 Million Euros worth of shares without going down the full prospectus route.

This would have cost RKH a lot more and greatly extended the time frame.

There could be a case made that they should have done this to reward LTH's more than 1:49 for our patience, but on the other hand, they didn't have to do this OO either.

I'm more hopeful of a one off "special dividend" when the cash starts flowing from SL, especially if the oil price is substantially above that used in the economics.

Otherwise I think RKH will be more focused on using the SL cash flow to pay off the debt and fund more exploration/appraisal work in the NFB.