Russian uranium imports banned. Congress finally passed the bill. U stocks are up a little across the board. This will make it harder to obtain fuel for America's nuclear fleet. US shut down their fuel making plants when Russia flooded the world with cheap supplies. I own a little LEU because they have some ability to become a fuel provider. They are providing small amounts of HALEU to the US govt. Haleu is a next generation fuel for modern reactors. I am sticking with etf's in Uranium because there are so many little players and so few actual profitmaking companies. URNM, URNJ and UROY, the only uranium royalty company. I sold my Cameco because they have so many hedges on the books, they are not going to profit from a big rise in prices.

MTA bought a few shares of Metalla Royalty. After a lot of promotion in the past few years, Metalla has steadily fallen from it multiyear peak of $12.56 at 12/1/20 to the current 3.19 level. I bought at 3.01 a few days ago. I like gold royalty companies because they are less volatile and gush cash once their royalties move into production. Metalla isn't there yet but has a big portfolio of royalties that should start producing profits in 2025-6. This is a long term buy and hold due to the size of the portfolio and the quality of the partners.

PLTR $26.46 Palantir....... Ok, this is a little late but I believe that Palantir is the real deal. Yes Nvidia is selling special AI strength chips to all the big guys, yes SMCI is building data centers with super human speed but I think Palantir will outlast both of them. Palantir is providing the software that drives AI. Is it vaporware? I don't think so. Customers, big corporate clients are willing to stand up and tell their stories about how fast and how good Palantir's AIP is. Check out this link

AIP was only introduced in 2023. These are customers who have already signed up and are willing to tell other companies how quickly Palantir took their corporate problem and built a solution in weeks. Their AIP bootcamp takes non IT corporate staff and within hours, shows them what aip can do for them. Some customers build a working product in hours. The bootcamp is free. Palantir is so confident, they are giving away the product for free until the customer feels good enough to pay for it. Many are paying. Their corporate customer base is going to explode. They can't have enough AIP Bootcamps to satisfy all the demand.

They just signed the US Army up for $178million bucks to build 10 prototype TITAN vehicles that will take all available info from satellites, ground, aircraft and use it to pinpoint targets. Palantir is providing AIP to Ukraine and Israel already.

Yes their p/e is sky high, yes their recorded rev growth is pedestrian at around 20% but this stock is going to keep going because they are going to start reporting much bigger growth. The CEO is a little wild but also wildly patriotic. He thinks the US will adopt AI into business quickly and help the US use this software to dominate the world economy.

Do some digging on Palantir. This could be the next Microsoft/Google/Apple.

PLTR +8% to 23.65 Yesterday Palantir was up 30%. This is an AI play and it will probably fade from this spike but I think it's for real. They have been around for 20 years and have mostly been working for the Defense Department and US government. Recently they started going after commercial business with their AIP( AI Platform). They are so confident about their ability to use their program to work with any existing system that they are inviting corporations to send their IT and mgmt to AIP Boot Camps for a week. They have had 500+ corporations so far in 2023 and they have allowed these companies to use their software for free for a week. Many have developed working solutions for their problems in a few days. They have signed up 15% of the big hospital organizations in the US in the past year. Many of the attendees have made testimonials for Palantir already. They are also working with Ukraine and Israel militaries to help in their battles against evil. The reason for the pop in price was their recent Q4 earnings. Revs +20% but profits up more and guidance for next year was for commercial to grow by 40%. I think they are sandbagging. Very high PE but this could be a long term hold and they could grow into a giant. Recently won a contract to work with Coles, a Costco like chain in Australia. Coles had been working with Microsoft for a few years but switched to Palantir. They are not using AI to generate poetry or plagiarize your next English essay, they are generating real world solutions for big corporate issues. A couple of the hospitals said that they have already saved them millions. Notice how badly Boeing has done versus AirBus over the past few years. Guess who is working with AirBus on quality control and maintenance. Probably not the best time to buy right now but you could take the time to check them out and see how the stock does in the meantime.

CTGO $16.96, about to go into production at their Alaska gold mine. They are 30% partner with Kinross. Kinross is going to use the high grade ore to use part of the capacity at their Fort Knox Mill that is running out of ore. They are mining ore now and trucking it to Fort Knox. Will start processing the ore in late spring. Full year production should net Contango around $50million/yr cashflow. There are only 10 million shares out so about $5/share cashflow.. That's less than 4X current share price. I know gold stocks are cheap but that's pretty low.

Of course,mine life at Manh Choh is only 4-5 years so they have to use the funds wisely. They intend to pursue another past producing mine at Lucky Shot. They have a small resource now but intend to build it up to 300K oz and sell it or JV with Kinross again to supplement Fort Know Mill feed. They have two more prospects that might work the same way in the future.

Not the most exciting "discovery" story but it looks like a no brainer with Kinross doing all the heavy lifting.

https://ucarecdn.com/64d82945-5297-43f5-b5c9-ca0d00af052f/ContangoCorporatePresentationJan202401.pdf

Never trusted stated production capacity from OPEC and especially Saudis. But like you say, they could change their mind and dramatically change the short term outlook for prices. Russia is another threat because their economy sucks and Putin has to finance his Ukraine expedition. One of these days, he may get pushed against the wall and have to raise more cash. Certainly he needs revenues to finance his tank replacement program because they have lost so many.

UROY, URNM, CCJ, LEU, URNJ

Uranium stocks all up big today due to Kazataprom earning report and guidance. They affirmed their recent PR that said 2024 production will be similar to 2023 versus their previous guidance of a BIG increase in production. Apparently they can't get enough sulfuric acid to increase production. I watched a video from Justin Huhn, Uranium Insider. He announced several months ago that he was skeptical of any increased production. His logic made a lot of sense. Said Kazataprom is operating ISR wells. They have to drill lots of wells to maintain production, much less massively increase. They have not been showing capex increasing. It takes a long time for them to drill more wells that will have flush production for a few months to increase production. This lack of increased capex foretold that 2024 would not show increased production.

So this affirmation of no big increase in production in 2024 plus Cameco also reporting trouble hitting production targets means the two big players in U production are not going to increase production in the near term.

Very bullish for U stocks. Could be a multi year bull run versus the big spike and drop in the last couple of runups. At some point greed will cause an over reaction and it will be time to take profits but that seems over the horizon now.

Have gotten less enthusiastic about REI. My biggest issue is their "smart and disciplined" approach to acquiring and exploiting their Central Basin vertical wells. These are very cheap to drill but very low in production per well. 100bpd doesn't get REI on any Permian producer radar for takeover/acquisition. That eliminates one of the best reasons to hold small producers. They are in the right Basin(Permian) but are holding lots of vertical wells that not many others are bothering with.

It's been painful to watch profitable producers not getting any market love but I got tired of waiting. I am also worried about the possibility of an oversupply of oil in 2024. OPEC has been limiting production but the world economy could hit a speedbump that will limit consumption further. Not believing that it's permanent or long lasting but could create some volatility in pricing.

I sold my REI but still holding an option that expires in 6/24.

Slow but painfully slow........

Prospera has done what they said they were going to do but it's taken a long time! Latest PR says 2300boepd at year end so big pop from 590 boepd avg in Q3.

2024 should mark the beginning of solid profits for Prospera. Their horizontal strategy appears to be working and the medium oil wells look like they will perform better than expected. Naturally they didn't get to drill all 6 because of delayed permits and weather but the opportunity is still there.

In the latest youtube video from Mining Stock Education, CEO thinks they will get to 3500boepd by yearend thru drilling and they are working on a purchase that "could" boost total production to near 5,000boepd by year end 2024. The acquisition sounds like lighter oil so should have less of a discount to WTI. Another positive is that the Canadians are FINALLY going to have a pipeline that will allow ocean export of oil and that should narrow the WTI discount that always hurts Canadian heavy oil producers. I haven't found any big negatives in Prospera. They have pretty much done what they said they would do but it just took longer than I expected. They are careful with their money and have paid down a lot of the past due debt that was on the books from the previous mgmt. They have been very careful and deliberate in working to correct old problems. It's frustrating that it has taken so long but it is heavy oil and the Canadian winter hasn't done them any favors either. I think moving towards lighter oil mix is smart and will reduce some of the wild volatility in their production levels.

Still holding shares with a cost of US$.0808 so down about 22% but I think this is the year they produce consistent profits. We'll see how oil holds up. I think oil prices have some downside potential this year.

Uranium! Missed the last runup in Uranium miners. Could never tell the companies with real deposits from the Moose Pasture guys that put Uranium in their stock name. Anyway I forgot about Uranium until last year. Read a bunch of articles about the upcoming shortage of Uranium and the US reliance on Russia for enrichment.

Basically we produce minimal U308 in the US, even though we have one of the biggest fleets of nuclear reactors in the world. China is going to pass us by a long ways but they have no worries about buying fuel from Russia.

Anyway became convinced that Uranium was actually headed for a shortage. We appear to be very close now. But still had the same problem of not being able to tell the Moose Pasture guys from real Uranium stocks.

So I went the safe way. I invested in LEU, CJC, URNM, UROY and recently URNJ.

LEU is not a miner. They are involved in enrichment. They recently fulfilled a Dept of Energy contract to provide sample amounts of HALEU, the fuel of the future for new design nuke plants. They actually make a small profit and are the logical choice to build actual enrichment facilities on US soil. Bought in the mid 30's so happy with the current mid 50's price and think it can run further as the price of U308 brings in new investors in the field.

CJC Small position. Resisted at first because it's the big safe play but the stock has done really well so have a small position. As the general investors and funds get excited about Uranium, they will go to Cameco first. They are restarting mines and are an actual producer. They still have trouble with flooding in their mines in the Athabasca Basin but those mines are big and will be important for domestic nuke plants that need acceptable sources of U308.

URNM Sprott sponsored mutual fund that covered U stocks. This is redundant because CJC is one of their largest positions but I thought it was the quickest way to cover the industry without me buying tiny amounts of 20 or 30 nuke stocks. Sprott has been pounding the table on Uranium for several years. They are not heroic, they started a physical uranium fund to buy up the physical surpluses of Uranium left over from the Fukashima disaster and say they are not going to sell into the current market. Eventually they will find a way to alter their charter. They have a vested interest in seeing U308 soar.

UROY This is the only uranium royalty company. They have 18-20 royalties from some pretty big names and could turn into a long term hold like Franco Nevada for gold IF this uranium pricing cycle holds up long enough for the quality royalties that they hold to turn into actual producing royalties. Same model as gold, low overhead and IF the royalties produce, very profitable. They were formed by UEC so CEO is also officer in UEC and benefits from that sponsorship. The big current benefit is that UROY can also buy physical U308. They have 2.65 million pounds of yellowcake that was bought at $54/lb. Current spot price of $106 means they are holding $281 million bucks in physical U308 vs a market cap of $381million. So there is a substantial asset in this stock plus a couple dozen royalties that look decent. Bought a small position recently at $2.65 so doing ok.

URNJ Bought very recently. This is the Sprott fund for junior uranium miners. This is hopefully the Moose Pasture plus stocks that could actually have U308 in the ground. Bought a small position because I remember the last time U stocks took off, the juniors left CJC, LEU and other legitimate players in the dust. So far so bad. Got excited and chased it during a recent high of over $29. Currently mid $26.

Will likely stop for now. The news flow should be very positive. Utilities have to purchase enough fuel to keep their reactors producing electricity. The world has finally figured out that renewables can't supply base load energy. Nukes are the current answer. Utilities will have to payup for nuclear fuel. The actual fuel costs are negligible compared to the revs produced by the plants. So if fuel is scarce, they will still have to step up and secure long term supplies. US passed a bill forbidding purchases from the Russian bad guys but left an out in case there is no other viable choice. I think that's going to be the case for awhile. China is going to soak up all available supplies as they are building dozens on new nukes. They don't care where they get it so they will finance uranium mines, buy from the Russians and do whatever to get more energy.

Gold miners and silver miners are still way undervalued but they have been that way for awhile with no signs of changing. Uranium looks like the near term way to profit from miners. Lone Clone knows the gold and silver players and has probably done fine but my miners suck except for the U stocks. Good luck all. Bobwins

Uranium..... will another rally finally come? Uranium has been rallying lately, with spot rising to $65/lb. We are entering the normal season when utilities contract for medium term supplies. There is a guy named Justin Huhn who runs the Uranium Insider newsletter. He posts videos on youtube and I have been following him for the past year. He says that utilities have been taking advantage of old contracts that were done when uranium was under $20. Those contracts included clauses that allowed utilities to upsize the amount of uranium they take by 25% when they are close to delivery. Since U has gone up so much, it's like free money. Obviously this reduces their needs somewhat but it also soaks up any remaining supplies.

He maintains that there isn't much supply left and utilities, especially US utilities, need Uranium fuel after 2027 quite badly. Last time U surged in 2007 I missed most of it and tried a few flyers but was unhappy with the resulting cow pasture miners that I ended up with.

This time, I stuck with the bigger names in Uranium. I have been holding LEU since the 30's and it's now $54.91. They have the contract to build and produce HALEU, which will be used in existing as well as newly designed nuclear reactors. US is woefully short of both U mines and enrichment facilities. Our smart legislators choose to buy enriched fuel from Russia so we don't have any US based plants operating now. LEU will build the first plant in decades.

I recently bought CCJ, Cameco, the second biggest producer of U in the world. CCJ is the best known U stock and will benefit from the recent price rise and any future rallies. I also bought a little URNM, which is a uranium ETF to get some diversification. LEU gets some supplies from the Russians and the market has been worried about that supply evaporating at some point, especially if the WEST puts uranium on the list of Russian items that are sanctioned. They haven't so far because they don't have enough alternative suppliers to make up for Russian sales to US and other utilities.

Bottom line, I believe the time is near when utilities will have to bid against each other for medium/long term Uranium supplies. There aren't many uranium mines in the process of being built due to the low prices over the past 20 years and these mines take a long time to find, permit, finance and build. There was some surplus supply but Sprott has a fund that has been buying up those supplies and holding them. The Chinese are building reactors as fast as they can and Japan is turning it's mothballed reactors back online. Nuclear is truly zero carbon and the world is finding out that getting off fossil fuels is harder than they thought.

Uranium..... will another rally finally come? Uranium has been rallying lately, with spot rising to $65/lb. We are entering the normal season when utilities contract for medium term supplies. There is a guy named Justin Huhn who runs the Uranium Insider newsletter. He posts videos on youtube and I have been following him for the past year. He says that utilities have been taking advantage of old contracts that were done when uranium was under $20. Those contracts included clauses that allowed utilities to upsize the amount of uranium they take by 25% when they are close to delivery. Since U has gone up so much, it's like free money. Obviously this reduces their needs somewhat but it also soaks up any remaining supplies.

He maintains that there isn't much supply left and utilities, especially US utilities, need Uranium fuel after 2027 quite badly. Last time U surged in 2007 I missed most of it and tried a few flyers but was unhappy with the resulting cow pasture miners that I ended up with.

This time, I stuck with the bigger names in Uranium. I have been holding LEU since the 30's and it's now $54.91. They have the contract to build and produce HALEU, which will be used in existing as well as newly designed nuclear reactors. US is woefully short of both U mines and enrichment facilities. Our smart legislators choose to buy enriched fuel from Russia so we don't have any US based plants operating now. LEU will build the first plant in decades.

I recently bought CCJ, Cameco, the second biggest producer of U in the world. CCJ is the best known U stock and will benefit from the recent price rise and any future rallies. I also bought a little URNM, which is a uranium ETF to get some diversification. LEU gets some supplies from the Russians and the market has been worried about that supply evaporating at some point, especially if the WEST puts uranium on the list of Russian items that are sanctioned. They haven't so far because they don't have enough alternative suppliers to make up for Russian sales to US and other utilities.

Bottom line, I believe the time is near when utilities will have to bid against each other for medium/long term Uranium supplies. There aren't many uranium mines in the process of being built due to the low prices over the past 20 years and these mines take a long time to find, permit, finance and build. There was some surplus supply but Sprott has a fund that has been buying up those supplies and holding them. The Chinese are building reactors as fast as they can and Japan is turning it's mothballed reactors back online. Nuclear is truly zero carbon and the world is finding out that getting off fossil fuels is harder than they thought.

Prospera Energy GXRFF/PEI.v US$.0959

Prospera Energy is a Canadian micro producing around 900boepd of heavy oil. Company has been restructuring for the past two years and recently began a 18 well drill program to increase production from around 900boepd to around 2,000boepd by 12/23.

Here is an update PR regarding the program so far:
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/09/12/2741280/0/en/Prospera-Energy-Inc-Announces-Horizontal-Infill-Drilling-Program-Update-and-Interest-Payable-Reduction-Settlement.html

Prospera is attempting to recover from the low oil prices of several years ago. The company was heavily in debt to vendors and was a victim of the low oil prices of a couple years ago. Since it's heavy oil, they get a discounted price from WTI.

In addition to working with the vendors to get them repaid, the company has been studying how to efficiently increase production and recovery of the significant 400million barrels of heavy oil reserves. The wells the company inherited were shallow vertical wells. The company has decided to reduce their footprint by drilling horizontal wells to replace the many vertical wells. As they complete their horizontal wells, they can dismantle and abandon the vertical wells and eliminate the liability and work required to service the many vertical wells.

The severe winter last year drastically reduced production from around 1,000boepd in Q3 2022 to 250boepd in Q1 2023. This delayed their drill program but the current program should provide significant increases in production and revenues, which should allow Prospera to bring payables current and grow the company on a profitable basis.

Pretty big move for little Ring today. Got up as high as 2.01 but slipped back below 2.00 to 1.99.
If oil can hold for the rest of the month, Ring should have a nice Q3 and attract some attention with their latest acquisition adding a little $$$ and higher oil prices helping the bottom line.

Ring is definitely struggling compared to some of the bigger players. They have good profits and are using their capital wisely but market doesn't seem to care, giving them a 2 p/e while other bigger Permian players get 5+. I have a few shares of Matador and they are doing very well compared to Ring. Bigger players also make better acquisition targets for the really big Permian players. OXY or Pioneer would probably spin off the CBP acreage, even if they were interested in buying Ring's traditional horizontal drilling acreage. There has been a fair amount of consolidation in the Permian as everyone is trying to get bigger to ensure efficient operations. They're not making more Permian acreage so the big boys with lofty stock prices have a big advantage in bidding wars. Not sure Ring has the right acreage to attract the BIG players.

Still, I like their practical approach and the stock is still dirt cheap. Holding and Hoping!

Bought LEAPS over the past couple of weeks. Mature 1/25 with a $1 strike. Bought half at 1.15 and the other half at 1.05. Pretty low premium for over a 1 year time frame. If Oil stays around high 80's, Ring is going to be printing money and should move back above $2 easily. My avg cost is 1.11 so need share price to exceed 2.11 by 1/25 to make a little money.

Also someone posted that sale by Strongholder owners is done. 12.6 million shares were sold on 8/9/23 so that should not be holding back the stock. Next earnings may be the positive shock that this stock needs.

Stronghold owners are selling 12.6million shares to fund a new venture. They announced on 8/9/23. You can see big dip and high volume for two days but not nearly enough to account for 12.6million shares. I got scared about oil and sold REI around 1.75 a few weeks ago. Regretted decision and so happy to buy back during this artificial weakness. Got some at 1.80 this morning. Hoping for more weakness. Fundamentals haven't changed. Biggest problem is mgmt is taking prudent course of action. Drilling low cost wells that don't produce high production volumes but are economically smart. My next buy order is at 1.75. We'll see if REI continues to sag. Volume is still suspiciously low. They must know that they are going to knock the price down. Sooner or later, they have to sell and get the money to move on. Hopefully it won't go too low. 52 week low is 1.68.

This is a drastic change in plans.

I think Art decided that the risk/reward of the onshore oil vs SASB was a better use of capital.

He stated that all four exploration wells will cost less than each of the SASB wells to drill. That is a significant difference in cost and big oil wells are probably going to out earn the SASB wells as well.

So the drill ship is still coming back in 2024 to complete the drill program, just delayed a bit. In the meantime, Art will drill out more intervals in the existing 6 wells to max production and revs. I still don't think drilling out more intervals will solve the pressure differences between the wells. The higher pressure wells will still mute production from lower pressure wells. But if he can drill out more intervals in the higher pressure wells, overall production/revs should improve.

I believe Art is a pretty careful guy. I trust that he thought about this before changing plans. I bought a few more today at .254. I am going to stick with Trillion until we see if the oil is there.

This seems like a big change in plans. Sending the drillship home until mid 2024? What happened to a new well every 50 days?

I guess Art figures to hold production steady by perforating more zones on existing wells. I don't think he cares about production a few years from now. He wants to max production now to generate cashflow that will fund other activities away from SASB. Got tired of waiting for the market to value gas production. I agree with him but he also didn't wait to see if the market would value net profits. He hasn't really shown profits yet and I also assume he wouldn't be perforating zones on existing wells if they were producing consistent volumes. I think overall field production has been compromised by the different gas pressures so we can't just add up each individual well tests and come up with overall SASB production. We'll get a better idea when Q2 financials come out.

It's clear Art is focusing on the onshore oil field as the way forward. Let's hope seismics are good and the first four wells hit black gold! .

ctgo 18.88 bought some ctgo today. Price was knocked down last week due to announced raise of $30million at $19. $30 million will be used for exploration and cushion for CTGO 30% share of mine construction at Manh Choh where JV partner Kinross is building the mine to be producing late 2024. Contango's share should be around 67K oz gold/yr. The Manh Choh land package is huge at 675,000 acres. This is important because Manh Choh is only projected a 4.5yr mine life. Kinross will run the ore thru it's Fort Knox mill. I am assuming that Kinross expects exploration success will extend the life of Manh Choh to supplement the expected production of 1 million oz for the JV during it's first 4.5 years.

Contango should receive ~67K oz/yr from Manh Choh at AISC ~$1200 resulting in eps of $12 to $19/yr.

Contango has debt to fund it's 30% share of construction plus the just raised $30 million. They expect to explore their other project, Lucky Shot. Lucky Shot was a producing high grade mine closed during WWII. There is a resource of !00K+ oz that Contango expects to significiantly increase.

New mines are always risky but Kinross is a big partner to rely on to bring the mine into production. Lucky Shot appears to have exploration upside so that Contango could build a small mine/mill to process the high grade gold and add to the cashflow from Manh Choh.

Mgmt is excellent with Rick Van Niewenhyse as CEO. There are only about 10 million shares outstanding so market cap is around $180million.

PYPL +.62 to 74.11 bought Paypal about a month ago at 64.10. Just bought a few more at 73 yesterday. Also bought 6/21/24 Leaps with $70 strike in June. Bought at 8.85 and sitting at 15.025 today.

Paypal hit a pandemic high of $300+ as everyone stayed at home and shopped online. That has faded and many felt Paypal was done. I think it still has some life and is trading at moderate levels for such a big company. Didn't get any love due to shrinking margins, although still profitable. They have exchanged the margin for growth from Braintree, which licenses the third parties. Paypal also has Venmo for future growth. I still use Paypal when I order online. That way I don't have to give my credit card number to every retail online store that may or may not protect my file and info. Also use it to send money to friends.

Don't think we are going back to $300 soon but I think $120 is a good target by next June.

PYPL $66.70 Another possible value trap. I bought leaps 6/24 $70 strike. Height of the Pandemic, PYPL was $288. I bought these a couple of days ago when it was $64. 52 week low is $58.95 so it's already bounced a bit. Profitable but exodus has been because of shrinking margins and lower growth profile. 435 million users! Owns Paypal, Venmo, Honey and several other fintech brands. They own a white label version of themselves to allow other merchants to offer paypal type services under their own brand. This is accounting for some of their top line Total Processed Value pymts but reducing margins at the same time. Paypal is forecasting topline growth of around 7% and margin shrinkage, which represents why so many have abandoned ship. Another risk is their CEO is retiring at year end so they need to find a new CEO. Market wants to see who is taking over the ship before jumping back onboard.

I actually like this "value trap" better than AAP. Profitable, trading at around 13X forward earnings versus historic range in the high 20's.
They have 435 million users and have a global marketplace to expand into. They are forecasting increased profits this year as they trim costs ahead of the many times forecasted global slowdown. I bought leaps to give me time for them to find a new CEO and to see if cost cutting and organic growth in this fintech pioneer can show up in the p&l and bring back a little shine to the stock.

AAP Advance Auto Parts +1.64 to $68.54 Bought some 1 year leaps on AAP at $75 strike for $9.40 on Tuesday. Huge selloff on earnings due to mediocre earnings and lowering guidance BUT really it was dropping dividend from 1.50/qtr to .25/qtr. Institutions, mutual funds and etf's chasing dividends were most of investors in AAP. They fled and dropped price from $120's to $63.54 on Monday.

Advance Auto Parts competes against big players like Autozone. AAP has ~5,000 stores. Q1 showed loss of momentum on sales and loss of gross margins. Still made a profit of .72 but only about 1/2 of guidance. Dropped guidance for 2023 eps to 6 to 6.50 with flat sales.

Competitive old line business so have had to adjust pricing and are focused on regaining business with auto repair shops by increasing inventory availability. Apparently professional auto repair shops are not as price sensitive when parts availability is dependable and good. This increase in inventory has led to an increase in accts payables and but company says inventory increases are almost done. Q2 will be similarly ugly but says 2nd half will improve slightly. So no miracle recovery but this company is about a 4 billion market cap business that was founded in 1932. Has CarQuest private label products and services the reliable auto repair segment. During a downturn, DIY auto repairs increase. I bought leaps to give me time to see if AAP can recover a bit.

I think Art has changed his mind. He originally was planning for the long term, perforating the lowest zones first and saving most of the gas for future production. This last well, they perforated most of the zones. Very unlike the first four wells. I think Art knows that the market is not going to revalue Trillion based on SASB. So I think he is trying to max out current production going forward to finance sexier exploratory drilling. "Off block prospects" that he feels will surprise the market. Also ngas prices in Europe are falling pretty fast so maybe he has decided that $14/mcf is not going to be here forever and he should get paid for buying SASB and it's infrastructure for a song.

vtle $45.08 Vital Energy (used to be Laredo)

This is a Texas focused energy company with new mgmt, trying to regain market respect. Market cap $760million. After 2022 annual earnings report, P/E is 1.13. Company has a lot of gas heavy land so market has been negative. Mgmt is going to focus on Howard County drill sites, which are oil heavy and intends to increase oil ratio as the year progresses.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vital-energy-announces-fourth-quarter-211500357.html

After a recent acquisition, company is increasing 2023 guidance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vital-energy-provides-select-preliminary-104500611.html

FCX Freeport US$36.47

Freeport McMoran is a safe way to play copper and gold. Big producer of copper and well known and liquid. FCX should do well over time due to upcoming shortage of copper. As electrification grows, copper usage is bound to grow and new deposits are becoming more difficult to find and lower grade as well. My average cost is around 36.20.

TCF.cn/TRLEF US$.3092

Been adding Trillion Energy after selling out in Q4 2022 at around .33. Trillion has gone 4/4 in drilling in 2022. They started well #5 and expect to hit total depth in 10 days and perforate shortly thereafter.

Well #4 was a big one with test results in the Guluc-2 well at 16.35mmcfpd. Well was put on production at 6mmcfpd.

Been buying REI on the way down. Bought my last shares at 1.68 right before earnings. Closed today at 1.91. Still below my avg cost of 1.94 but getting closer. REI posted Q1 earnings of 32 million or .17eps(.14 adjusted for one time items.)

Had free cashlflow of 10 million. Full year guidance is for production between 17800 and 18,800boepd.

Oil is around 84% oil and ngl.

Earnings could go down in Q2 because the price of oil and ngas have continued to fall. I expect oil to rebound later this year as China continues it's rebound and production stagnates.

Trillion Energy, TCF.v/TRLEF US$.30

Trillion hit a big one in the Black Sea, 16+mcf/day in tests. Put on production at 6mcfpd. Trillion currently gets $17/mcf for their ngas versus $2+ in the US. Trillion bought 5 offshore platforms worth about $6million for peanuts a few years ago. They are drilling mostly known wells that were discovered but never drilled in times of much lower ngas prices. They have drilled 4 wells and hit on all 4. The plan is to drill 11 wells this year and about the same number next year. The known targets will result in about 25 wells to be drilled thru 2024. There are also several exploratory targets that are close enough to the existing platforms to be drilled with extended reach directional wells. Trillion hopes to find several fields like the current SASB field to continue to grow production and reserves.

Revenues started in 11/22 so this is still fairly early. Trillion has a market cap of 110 million. Cashflow should be solid by year end 2023.

It will help the stock a lot if they are successful in getting both wells online by end of month. That will put Trillion back on schedule. I think Trillion is still vulnerable to the overall economy. If we have more shocks to the economic system like the weekend bank failures, you could still get your lowball bids executed. I missed the .23's. Should have jumped on them. You snooze, you lose!

Production is really forecast to stay flat for 2023. Ring was producing around 13Kboepd when they bought Stronghold and they added 5K boepd so the combined total was 18K. That's what Ring is projecting for all of 2023. They are going to drill horizontals and cheap verticals to offset declines in existing wells. I expect them to focus on debt reduction so they are in position to make further acquisitions. Increases in oil and ngas would help them speed up the process a lot. I expect oil to move up before ngas. There will probably be a surplus of ngas in the US in 2023 because there are no LNG projects coming online until 2024-5. That's when ngas should move back up. A recession could impact both oil and ngas prices to varying degrees.

Missed the call. Will try to find a replay this afternoon. Don't expect anything spectacular. Mgmt is conservative and going for low cost, conservative ways to drill smaller, high return wells. I imagine steady as she goes narrative to drill out the many opportunities they have.

I was disappointed in eps for Q4 but hopefully hedges will even out over time and they get a little help from price of WTI going forward. Gotta believe those Chinese drivers and travelers are going to stoke crude demand going forward into 2023-4.

have to remember, they issued 63 million shares to Stronghold owners in August and September. Those folks have seen their shares fall and they want their cash. Another couple months and the sellers should be gone.

REI 2.07 Sold out of Ring Energy at the end of 2022 at a loss. i didn't take into account the private shareholders who were paid with REI shares in Q3. I think they have been cashing out steadily, driving the share price down near $2. Ring closed the transaction in 8/31/22 so had one month of the private production in their Q3 results. Ring made .49 in Q3. P/E is going to be around 1!!!

Conservative mgmt, low break even, high oil content in production mix, low cost drilling. Ring should do fine once the private company shareholders dump their shares. Granted it's a lot of shares but sooner or later this should move up to reasonable territory. The financial results for Q4 and 2022 are due 3/10/23. I expect very positive production and financial results.

REI 2.07 Sold out of Ring Energy at the end of 2022 at a loss. i didn't take into account the private shareholders who were paid with REI shares in Q3. I think they have been cashing out steadily, driving the share price down near $2. Ring closed the transaction in 8/31/22 so had one month of the private production in their Q3 results. Ring made .49 in Q3. P/E is going to be around 1!!!

Conservative mgmt, low break even, high oil content in production mix, low cost drilling. Ring should do fine once the private company shareholders dump their shares. Granted it's a lot of shares but sooner or later this should move up to reasonable territory. The financial results for Q4 and 2022 are due 3/10/23. I expect very positive production and financial results.

Also picked up a few under .24. Seems like a deal with two wells very close to coming online in March. Output will double in the next few weeks. 2 producing wells to 13 this year!

US ngas prices are not connected to what Trillion will receive but I think it does impact investor psychology. Ngas bounced from several year low and some traders probably decided the bounce was over and took profits. We are pretty much done with winter and aside from Freeport ramping up last train, there won't be an increase in LNG exports this year. This year ngas prices in the US will be weak. But more LNG plants are on the way and longer term, the future looks bright.

Europe is happy but they had full Russian ngas for the first half of 2022 to help fill their storage. This year, they won't have much Russian gas to help fill storage. We'll see how they do and if traders panic again and bid prices to the moon. Probably won't be a repeat of last year but I think there is still a chance of higher Euro ngas. AND Trillion is in the right place at the right time.

Sorry for the late reply. I was not familiar with Pantheon. I listened to most of the 2 hr podcast they had on their recent results. Never seen a company put out such a long explanation. Obviously at 500+million market cap, this is not a small company. They obviously have some big money betting that they are right and they can bring in substantial production from the North Slope. The chart is very good since you asked about the stock. Hope you have some.

The issue that they spent hours explaining is why they hit so much gas in their latest test well. Obviously they are very sensitive to the topic otherwise they wouldn't have spent two hours going over and over it. This worries me. Any time a company has to spend so much time explaining an issue, it's obviously a worry for the markets. The North Slope is far away from user markets. Lots of ngas is NOT what they are looking for. They want light sweet crude that can fill up a mostly empty Trans Alaska Pipeline. They emphasized over and over again how close they are to the Pipeline and the Dawson Highway. So IF they can drill multiple wells and IF it's a high percentage of light sweet crude, this is a big project in a world that doesn't have many places to go besides the Permian Basin.

The cost of the wells is in the high teens of millions so this isn't going to be cheap drilling. They fracked the test well so they need service companies and infrastructure that probably isn't there. Of course if they got a big oil company to jv with them, the service companies would probably spend the time and capital to go up to the North Slope with equipment and source the sand and water.

If you look at the 1 yr chart, the market has been selling this project off. The peak price for the stock was $1.99 in early 2022 so the market cap was US$1.5 billion! versus US$500+million now. So it's not a slam dunk.

I worry about the oil/gas mix, the remote location and the need for big money to step in. I didn't hear that they intend to develop this project themselves. I think they spent all that time on the podcast because they need to convince some deep pockets that this will work. They do have 100% of these projects so that's great. They do have room to give a JV partner a significant share and still retain a decent share for themselves. I am not that familiar with the players that already are working in the North Slope so don't know who their target JV partner might be. Is the project big enough for a new player to step in? Probably. They are talking hundreds of millions of barrels.

For me, this is already fairly expensive and the market isn't terribly enthusiastic about the project. The shares have been positive this year and I do think we need more oil for the intermediate term. World use of oil isn't going away soon enough and yet big oil is paying dividends rather than spending money to look for new oil. Personally I would pass but it could turn out to be a big project but it's probably a few years away and I'm too old to wait! LOL! Good luck and again sorry for the delay in response.

Hi Checkmate, MOLY

Never quite got it right. Used mostly for steel hardening. In order for Moly to thrive, we need a booming world economy that is demanding a lot of steel. I don't think that is happening soon. Did CPM group highlight a significant supply shortfall in Moly? Otherwise, I don't think it's going to take off.

The other problem with MOLY is the relative scarcity of Moly only mines. With the time frames required to discover, drill out and get a mine approved and financed, it's hard to hit a window when MOLY prices will be continuously strong. It's definitely a minor metal but I can't remember a significant MOLY mine coming line either.

Yeah, I'd rather see them drill some of the prospects and hit another SASB field than buy back or pay dividends. Short sighted.

PTRUF/PRQ.TO US$1.77

Petrus Energy is a Canadian energy company. I like this one because of the financial results so far, projections for next year AND the mgmt.

Petrus changed mgmt in 2021. Ken Gray took over as CEO. They wanted to increase production but their bank was not helpful so they refinanced their debt. Ken and his brothers put in a tremendous amount of equity resulting in 74% insider ownership. In addition one of the brothers loaned the company $25million for three years in a second lien position to the bank that provides Petrus with a revolving line of credit. In addition to the tremendous equity contribution, Don Gray is the largest shareholder and Chairman, holding 34% of the common shares. Don Gray is also founder and CEO of Peyto,. a natural gas producer that started out as a penny stock and is now a 2.2 billion dollar major in Canadian natural gas production.

Petrus has 122 million shares outstanding.

In the latest Q3 report, Petrus averaged 6,639boepd at 71% gas and 29% liquids. Petrus is projecting exiting 2022 at 10,500boepd.

Guiding for $130-135million capex in 2023 allowing the company to average 13,000 to 13,500boepd. That should result in a 75% increase in production in 2023 as well as a 65% increase in cashflow to C$140-150million depending on commodity prices.

Petrus's main production comes from the Ferrier fields in Alberta. In addition to substantial acreage, Petrus owns the processing facilities for their production.

Petrus has low debt of C$48million. In addition to Ferrier they have substantial acreage positions in Thorsby and Foothills with steady, low decline production. They also have drilling sites in Kakwa which are oil heavy and represent future growth. Petrus focuses on high payback wells that payoff drilling costs within 6 months. They are a leader in this drilling metric.

Petrus is already a success story, starting with an C$.81 share price a year ago vs C$2.44 now. 52week hi was c$3.42. I missed this stock in 2021 but with a double in production coming in 2023, this should still take off.

The change in lending and decrease in debt allowed Petrus to rapidly expand production.

Energy stocks have been leading the market all year. My biggest position is Trillion Energy, TRLEF. Drilling into known reservoirs in the Black Sea off 5 existing offshore platforms. These cost hundreds of millions to build but have been paid for by previous production from the field. Trillion is just drilling known gas locations and getting paid $30/mcf! compared to $7/mcf in the US. First two wells were drilled and completed. Flowing gas at 3.3MMCFPD to Trillion. Pipelines to shore and onshore gas processing plant are already there. Takes 45 days/well to drill, complete and turn to revs. It's going to take a few months to get real numbers, cashflow and eventually profits but Trillion has 17 wells mapped out to drill in 2023 and 2024. Beyond that, they have several prospects that are very similar to the field they are now drilling. They will explore those once first 17 wells are drilled and producing. Here is latest presentation:

https://trillionenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Trillion_Energy_Intl_Corporate_Presentation_NOV_2022-V5.pdf

In addition to Trillion, I have mostly bigger energy producers. VET and Serica(SQL.L) are plays on European energy crisis but have faded lately due to Euro excess profits taxes and rising storage levels. US oil producers have done much better. MTDR, REI and OILSF are cheap and primarily oil producers. SD, CTRA are gas heavy.

Longer term, energy stocks should do very well. Even in a recession, energy usage doesn't drop that much. And most energy producers are very wary of overdrilling so they are holding production pretty even and using profits to buy back stock and distribute dividends. Europe is going to need every ounce of LNG we can produce to replace Russian gas. Time to build new LNG export plants is the big issue and resistance to building new pipelines in the US to increase LNG exports.