Oilman Jim

Reabold Resources (RBD) started reporting the institutional holdings TR-1 notifications last week following its successful premium placing.  With four drills already confirmed for this year and announcements of acquisitions (undoubtedly leading to further drills) imminent, RBD remains my current 2018 favourite. Other companies with drills pending are Savannah Petroleum (SAVP) and SDX Energy (SDX) , both of which announced full year results last week.  The problem with these is as they are now existing producers, drilling success is likely to have limited impact on their market value.  By contrast, drilling success at companies such as Chariot Oil & Gas (CHAR) and  Petro Matad (MATD)  could see an explosive impact on their share prices.  We should find out with all of them soon. Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) also announced full year results last week.  As always, it's all about whether can they obtain financing for t...

More excellent news from  SDX Energy (SDX)  today and the share price did nothing.  Indeed, none of their recent RNS announcements (all highly positive) have had any meaningful impact on the share price, which has more or less flat lined.  Why?  Very simply, the small cap market gets excited about exploration plays (the unknown) and boredom sets in once the development / production stage (the known) is reached.  At this point, companies can only be valued on the basis of comparison with other quoted companies and in the initial development stage the sustainable production level is difficult to define.  The company at this point also enters a no mans land where the existing speculative investors are selling out to reinvest in new exploration plays, but it is not yet at the stage where new fundamentals focussed, income orientated investors are fully ready to commit. Furthermore, how much are the reserves and production really worth in countries where...

News today from Anglo African Oil & Gas (AAOG) announcing the  finalisation of a contract with Schlumberger to supply support services for the drilling of the new TLP-103 well, the  completion of the workover of the TLP-101 well and the bringing forward of the workover of the TLP-102 well so that it will be completed by early April.  To me it seems clear that they will announce the placing then, hoping that the workovers will this time have resulted in a meaningful increase in production. UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) slipped out news on Friday afternoon of another convertible loan conversion, this time at 1.42p per share.  There is still £5.25 million outstanding, so based upon the decline to date, the share price should be well under 1p by the time the loan is fully converted, probably sometime in the summer.  At this point I would expect to see a "conventional" discounted placing, followed by a huge ramp.  It's one to keep...

Rockrose Energy (RRE) announced an update on "incremental development projects" today.  It is looking to exploit what it believes is significant upside in terms of recoverable discovered hydrocarbons which could  extend the life of the fields and postpone  decommissioning.  This is what the game is about since the companies who gave RRE millions of pounds to take thousands of barrels of oil production off their hands did this to discharge what they believed were huge decommissioning liabilities.   Serica Energy (SQZ)  already has done such deals, Hague and London Oil (HNL) is expected to return to the market soon with such deals done and Jersey Oil & Gas (JOG) is looking to do some of these deals too.  Obviously, it's all a question of persuading auditors to agree to changes in accounting assumptions, turning what were huge liabilities into huge assets overnight, but for the time being the market is buying this financial alchemy and t...

News today from Chariot Oil & Gas (CHAR) that the operator has commenced drilling the Rabat Deep 1 well.  Operations are expected to take approximately 50 days and the prize is a gross mean prospective resource of 768 million barrels of oil (76.8 million barrels net to CHAR).  The technical situation in the market is complicated by the pending placing, but even if it all goes wrong there is still the Prospect S exploration well to look forward to later in the year with a gross mean prospective resource of 300 million barrels net to Chariot. Baron Oil (BOIL) made an investor presentation this morning.  In addition to its quite well known interests in the Colter and Wick prospects (along with Reabold Resources (RBD), United Oil & Gas (UOG) and Upland Resources (UPL)) BOIL also has the El Barco prospect in Peru and is negotiating a deal for a new partner to pay 50% of the $1.4 million cost of the El Barco well to be drilled mid-2018 targeting unrisk...

At last, Savannah Petroleum (SAVP) has confirmed the actual start of its Niger drilling campaign.  Despite the long awaited nature of the news, the share price fell, weighed down now by over half a billion shares issued to acquire certain assets of Seven Energy in Nigeria.  Unfortunately this "value accretive" deal has turned out not to be so for the shareholders. Echo Energy (ECHO) announced the appointment of a Chief Operating Operator and an update on its Bolivia operations.  Surprisingly, its shares moved down on the news.  Tens of millions of the 3p warrants must still need to be worked through. Sirius Petroleum (SRSP) announced the mobilisation of the  COSL Force jack-up rig to Nigeria.   Once on station, it is anticipated that drilling of the Ororo-2 well will commence in April 2018.   Up a few percent today on the news, but still trading below the recent placing price, SRSP has potential. Contact me on Twitter @Oilman_Jim ...

Empyrean Energy (EME) announced today that Dempsey production testing is to resume.  This "trillion cubic feet of gas" prospect previously turned out to be a huge disappointment, particularly after all the "significant gas shows" RNS announcements pumped the share price up to over 30p. A word of warning, virtually every oil and/or gas well I have been involved in has seen gas shows, some "significant", even when the end result was a "dry hole".  This is simply because the locations being drilled are considered prospective due to the presence of hydrocarbon charged source rocks and potential reservoirs.  A "significant gas show" sounds great, but means little and cynics might say it is only announced to boost the share price.  Remember, Sound Energy (SOU) 's "50 million Euro" Badile well had "significant gas shows" very shortly before being declared "non commercial". Cabot Energy (CAB) (the old...

Saffron Energy (SRON) returned to trading today, having published its supplementary AIM admission document excluding the Italian assets of its 50% shareholder, Po Valley Energy, which now will be distributing its SRON shareholding to its shareholders.   Sound Energy (SOU) will be distributing the SRON shares it is receiving for its Italian assets to its shareholders too, so there will be plenty of shares flooding the market. Nostra Terra Oil & Gas Company (NTOG) is crowing about its "record revenue and production" and claiming to be "cash flow positive at the plc level".  How reinvesting net income from the field into workovers makes the company cashflow positive at the plc level is a mystery.  I guess once the auditors have been through it, the usual large loss will be recorded. Baron Oil (BOIL) yesterday announced farm out agreements with Corallian ( Reabold Resources (RBD) 's portfolio company) to earn 5% of Colter and 15% of Wick....

Anglo African Oil & Gas (AAOG) issued an RNS this morning announcing a "New 20-year licence".  Many appear to believe this has now been awarded, perhaps confused by references to the "Congolese state", however, all that has happened is that their involuntary JV partner has agreed to an application for a new licence.  Remember, in their RNS of 11 December 2017, Anglo African said "AAOG wishes to ensure that this process is completed before the start of drilling of TLP-103" so drilling remains conditional of the award of a new licence and I would suggest investors contact the company for further clarification on this. Also requiring clarification from AAOG is their funding situation.  I very much doubt that the company is fully funded for the proposed operations, particularly since they are now "entering into a significant turnkey contract with Schlumberger to carry out a an intervention on the TLP-102 completion" in April and May, before ...

Reabold Resources (RBD) confirmed the placing results late yesterday afternoon.   Due to demand received during the bookbuild, RBD decided to increase the placing from 1,222,000,000 shares to 1,305,083,333 shares , an increase of 7%.  The shares have been placed with new and existing shareholders of the company at a price of 0.6 pence per share  to raise approximately £7.83 million.   Today's RBD announcement confirmed an increased investment in Corallian and its Colter and Wick prospects, with  drilling of Colter on track for the first half of 2018.  The company  believes that this is the ideal time to deploy capital in line with its strategy and looks forward to an exciting year with multiple transformational drilling events.  With the placing out of the way, i t's onwards and upwards now for RBD. Jersey Oil & Gas (JOG) announced that a r ig contract has been signed for the drilling of the Verbier appraisal programme in ...