Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Paper oil dreamed of in the office yes. But for oil in the ground and brought to the surface in commercial quantities it would be necessary to drill to find that out. To drill would require funding, an exploration licence and an operating subsidiary that is not under threat of being wound up.
I am not taking any questions on this because I refuse to be interrogated by people who don't know as much as I do.
It must be so far off stage as to be completely out of the theatre since a statement on assured availability of funding was conspicuously missing from the Application for Renewal and the letter to the Minister. Or maybe Empire just considered it did not need to be mentioned since $42 million still remains from Malcolm's $50 million line of credit.
Wrong, it's a Contact Us facility provided at their website. Check your facts.
It should be of interest to Empire's shareholders which of the two reports is more believable. I for one do not blindly accept Malcolm Bendall's opinion on the matter.
At least they will be alerted to the existence of the GES version if they don't already know of it and they can take it up further with GES and Empire if they choose to. That is kind of obvious I'd have thought.
It is curious that Empire/GSLM has several times spoken of Larapintine play COS percentages for Bellevue and Thunderbolt that are at variance with the percentages in the Figure 13 GES table.
That together with the omission to identify the actual author of Appendices 20 and 21 certainly raises suspicions. One has learned over the years one cannot be too suspicious of Empire's claims and assertions.
It is reasonable that some significant expenditure should be reported on Geology and Administration over the year, however, the reported expenditures of $2,200,000 on Geophysics Ground in the April-June quarter and $2,700,000 on Drilling in May-June are amazingly blatant falsehoods.
Their supposedly being supported in the Annual Report by the statements
On 10 May 2011, GSLM entered into a contract (Appendix 5) with Terrex Seismic (a seismic contractor) to book and prepare its seismic program as part of its three to five year program
and
Drilling rigs have been booked and GSLM has been invoiced for the engagement of Hunt Energy to commence (Appendix 25). Any under commitments in year 2 will be made up in year 3 together with that year’s commitment.
is a ludicrously transparent attempt at fudging the issue.
This mendacious effort to get total expenditure for the two years over the required $7,550,000 reminds me of the farcically incompetent jobs of the Dortmunder gang in a Donald Westlake novel.
Are failure to pay Paul Batista Esq. and GSLM being pursued by the law firm acting for the liquidator of Dyson Security the legal problems you refer to?
The way things are looking Empire may never get to prove there is no oil in Tasmania.
I take it as a given that the RPS Energy report was written in good faith and I would be very interested to see their comments on the GES approach. The differences in COS percentages is incredible.
Delivery failure to the e-mail address given in the RPS Energy report so forwarded instead per the Contact Us form at their website.
There is a discrepancy between the COS figures in the GES table and those stated by Empire in the 8-K and Annual Report (the latter making reference to the accompanying Figure 13 table):
(Larapintine) Bellevue 26% and 22%
(Larapintine) Thunderbolt 16% and 18%
I have sent the following e-mail:
To RPS Energy for the attention of Brian Diamond and David Guise
rpsenergy@rpsplc.com.au
I am a shareholder of Empire Energy Corporation International (Nasdaq EEGC.PK) of which Great South Land Minerals Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary.
I refer to the RPS Energy report titled "Assets of Great South Land Minerals, Limited, Tasmania" dated 23rd October 2008 (Project Reference GSL-1224) prepared by Brian Diamond and checked by David Guise.
The following is an extract from the 8-K filing to the SEC by Empire Energy dated 17 March 2012
"As part of Empire and GSLM's ongoing technical and exploration evaluation review work, Global Exploration Services (United Kingdom) was commissioned to produce an independent professional opinion of the Geological Risk Assessment and Volumetrics summarizing the present potential oil bearing assets of EL14/2009 in Tasmania. The comprehensive review has reconsidered the riskings of the original 2008 RPS Energy report findings, including further detailed seismic analysis work and consideration of valid empirical and geological evidence ignored in the original report including identification of potential Ordovician Larapintine reefs. As a result, the prospective resource estimates for the Permian-Triassic exploration play (Gondwana petroleum system) at the Bellevue and Thunderbolt prospects has been included in the re-evaluation, which has derived a total potential Mean Prospective Resources (MMB) for oil from both the Gondwana and Larapintine petroleum systems at Bellevue of 349MMB, and Thunderbolt of 151MMB respectively. The assessment yields more credible realistic prospect probabilities, the chance of success was included for the Bellevue Gondwana Prospect at 24% and was reassessed for the Bellevue Larapintine prospect chance to 22% demonstrating to shareholders that the Bellevue well has a reasonable chance of success. The chance of success was also included for the Thunderbolt Gondwana prospect at 22% and reassessed for the Thunderbolt Larapintine prospect to 18% therefore also giving the Thunderbolt drill hole a reasonable chance of success. The final report will be lodged as an 8K filing with the SEC."
The final Global Exploration Services report has not yet been lodged, however a table of its overall results appears as Figure 13: Geological Risking & Volumetrics (GES, 2012, Appendix 21) on page 22 of the recently released Great South Land Minerals Annual Report for EL 14/2009 (see http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/788206/000107878212001514/0001078782-12-001514-index.htm)
In the table is stated (in effect) that the RPS model employed for the Larapintine Petroleum System is a two-step process of 1) Play Chance and 2) Prospect Chance, that the three Risk factors reservoir, seal, source/migration (charge) are common to both its play and prospect chance assessment, and that the occurrence of common or shared geological factors has resulted in double risking of certain factors. The overall prospect chance percentages are as such erroneously understated and Global Exploration Services has recalculated them employing the Chevron Model (1997) yielding very significantly higher percentage percentages of 26% versus 2% for Bellevue prospect and 16% versus 0.72% for Thunderbolt prospect.
Furthermore, GES has also presented Gondwana Petroleum System prospect chance percentages of 24% for Bellevue and 22% for Thunderbolt where RPS Energy evidently considered the available data was insuffucient to warrant any calculations being made.
In view of the extraordinary discrepancies between the results of the two reports as a concerned shareholder I wish to enquire whether RPS Energy concedes its report to be seriously in error and whether it intends making any public comment on the matter.
Thank you for giving your attention to this serious matter.
Nothing from TXO on this. It may be there will not be any announcement forthcoming?
More comments:
RPS Energy did not make any estimates for a Gondwana system play (i.e. at shallower depth above the Permian unconformity) for Bellevue and Thunderbolt. However, GES somewhat surprisingly arrives at prospect chances of 24% for Bellevue and 22% for Thunderbolt for that play.
The GES table shows Gondwana Trap risk factors of 70% for both Bellevue and Thunderbolt. Why such a high percentage should be awarded is unclear in view of the seismic profiles not being interpretable as showing presence of identifiable structural traps. That is not to say they might not be present but it is a long shot that the wells would be luckily located right over them. There is also no drape evident in the seismic profiles of the Permo-Triassic sequence over the basement domes so that a dipping seqence representing a broad structural trap would have to be ruled out. That leaves permeable beds with low primary dips experiencing fault truncations against impermeable units or lateral facies changes into impermeable units representing wholly sedimentary trap structures of indeterminate but low chance. Laterally persistent oil/gas accumulations immediately below the dolerite contact acting as a seal is an exotic notion that barely stands serious consideration.
In view of these reservations in assigning a low 70% risk factor to presence of traps, if the percentage were halved to 35% for Bellevue the prospect chance success reduces from 24% to 12% and if it were assigned a conservative say 20% the prospect chance of success would be 7% (with still no overall Gondwana system play factor employed).
All in all I take the GES prospect chance percentages with quite a large dose of salt.
Some comments:
GES does not consider an overall play chance for the Larapintine system in Figure 13 but goes directly to the prospect factors. However, is it really true that a prospect in a virgin Basin stands the same chance of success as a prospect with the same prospect factors that is located in a proven and perhaps prolific Basin? I would take a lot of convincing of that. Surely an overall Basin risk factor should be applicable, subjective as it might be.
Where prospect chance factors are directly comparable (Trap and Reservoir) it is evident that GES is prepared to assign significantly higher chance factors than is RPS Energy.
The matter of possible double risking by RPS Energy to one side it would seem that GES has itself applied rather rose-tinted spectacles treatment to Bellevue and Thunderbolt.
Clarification:
Figure 13: Geological Risking & Volumetrics (GES, 2012, Appendix 21) on page 22 of the Annual Report is a comparison of the RPS and GES models for Bellevue and Thunderbolt prospects. The essential difference is that RPS employed a two stage model while GES used the Chevron Model (1997). There is no indication that GES used any new data but instead a different approach to the same base data and they contend that RPS double counted certain risk factors which resulted in an erroneously low overall prospect risk.
At least this is proof that a review by GES actually does exist.
The Annual Report contains a good deal of historical material (the first 16 pages) that has been presented at length in previous reports. A much shorter report without padding could have covered actual exploration and relevant associated activities concerning EL 14/2009 for the reporting year. Further on in the report there is a lot of unseemly whining that has no strict bearing on exploration completed.
Of main interest to the shareholders is 2.1.4 Summary of work completed.
The first item "Report to RPS Energy in London - (Appendix 1)" is not enlarged upon elsewhere in the report. It presumably concerned some commentary by GSLM on the RPS Energy report but shareholders are left in the dark as to what it was about. Surely it would be of interest if not some concern to the shareholders.
Much of the administration activity noted is simply justification for no hard exploration results being reported. The two "complaints" have no place at all in a report on exploration activities.
The two items "Potential Ordovician Reefs Tasmania EL14/2009 Project Summary – (Appendix 20)" and "Risk Assessment & Volumetrics - (Appendix 21)" omit to state who actually authored them which is interesting in view of contractors and consultants being named elsewhere. Why isn't Global Exploration Services named clearly and unequivocally as the author?
The text on page 21 "During 2012, as part of Empire and GSLM’s ongoing technical and exploration evaluation review work (Appendix 20 and Appendix 21), Global Exploration Services (United Kingdom) was commissioned to produce an independent professional opinion of the Geological Risk Assessment and Volumetrics reassessment of the present potential oil bearing assets of EL14/2009 in Tasmania." could be read as being they were actually prepared by Empire/GSLM. This whole GES business smells fishy, not least for its purported report not having been released as was stated it was going to be.
My interest is in seeing that investors are not misled and ripped off.
I suggest you read #23870 for a little of the background and there is plenty more I have not disclosed.
See the Mineral Resources Development Act Section 24 (b) whereby the Minister determines the length of time for which a Category 4 exploration licence is granted and not the applicant. You also overlook the fact that GSLM had previously held an SEL for 10 years which was more than sufficient time to carry out drill testing.
After conclusion of negotiations with the TLC there was still adequate time to drill Bellevue and Thunderbolt. Empire's PRs themselves affirm it was so.
As regards financing it was to be provided from Malcolm's $50 million personal line of credit. MRT could only act on the information supplied by GSLM it had before it.
implied threat.
This "records are being made of every post" sabre-rattling is regularly given an outing by parties who are unable to address the substantial issues.
Presumably the implied thread was made by a certain poster in the deleted #25530. Pathetic stuff.
TXO share price is still tanking and Tim Baldwin hasn't even been able to bring himself to provide a Yahoo link to Malcolm's latest buffoonery. Much glumness on the uk.advfn board.
Your 100,000 shares are worth only $600 less brokerage. I'm not clear why you would consider them to be of such overwhelming interest to yourself and the message board.
Why not? The hapless investors in Zeehan Zinc were. The crafty Chinese were. One of the best lawyers in the world (so we are assured) was.
When such blatant lies are told about expenditure incurred on EL 14/2009 one would have to question whether the vaunted Global Exploration Services report even exists. Empire/GSLM does not appear in the list of clients at the GES website (and there is a vacant slot for another one to evenly balance the two-sided list).
If GES had protested to Empire that they had been misrepresented how would we even know? What could they do about it? Why not another whopper lie to MRT after all the others?
It's strange that the many PRs over the years that referred to the RPS Energy prospective resource estimates (sometimes called "assets") never once gave the corresponding COS percentages, while the first time the GES report (yet to be sighted by shareholders) was mentioned both the prospective resource and COS percentage figures were stated.
1.8 QUESTION 8: PROPOSED EXPLORATION PROGRAM
1.8.1 Exploration Aims/Philosophy
Reporting to RPS Energy of additional information that was previously excluded from their original 2008 analysis;
It would be interesting to learn RPS Energy's response to this but I don't anticipate stockholders would be apprised of it.
I don't recall seeing an 8-K about this one either:
Intent of Revocation by Minister – during the period June 2011 to December 2011. This time period left doubts with investors and contractors in relation to security of ongoing tenure.
Some might think it was an important development which the market should have been informed of.
Charts are of dubious relevance at the best of times and none at all for a speculative minnow stock like Empire whose pps is entirely dependant on what it achieves in the critical areas of funding and ground tenure.
I think you are onto something. Those devious untrustworthy orientals are preparing to invade Australia to seize Empire's oil without having to pay for it.
The only report available to the stockholders to evaluate is the highly detailed and professionally prepared one by RPS Energy which says 2% COS max. Extraordinary new claims made about a 25% COS must be treated with considerable scepticism. They sound very fishy, especially for a Basin where not a single barrel of oil has been discovered to date and where genuine seeps are virtually unknown. Why is that report being witheld from the stockholders?
It's pointless hankering after restoration of previously held ground when they weren't able able to do any exploration over the past two years on the presently held ground. The Koreans had time to come to the party and drill Bellevue and Thunderbolt but they were nowhere to be seen. Whatever happened to the 14 holes last summer, or even the more modestly achievable April 2nd start date?
Bad weather and closed roads are no impediment to expending $$$millions on commitments for drilling. Just because there isn't a drill rig on site doesn't mean Malcolm isn't right now busy drilling away in his mind and chalking up big expenditure commitments for the next Quarterly reports. The same goes for reporting expenditure commitments on seismic surveys - some might think it takes a seismic crew on the ground to find the huge new oil domes under the thick coal beds but that's not how it works. It's the kind of old fashioned thinking those obstructive dunderheads at MRT are bogged down with. They need a good jolt with a FASER power generator to wake them up. Just my thoughts on the subject.
It helps to know what you are talking about when you get into a discussion. Sheer bravado will not get you very far.
I'm not fishing around at all, I'm saying there are no grounds at all for believing financing to be an accomplished fact.
The last time they had funding (until they blew it by their incompetence or sticky fingers) was nearly 4 years ago when they had a licence that still had a year to run. Many finanacing attempts since then have come to nought and the possibility that funding can now be obtained when the term of the current licence has expired is la la land talk.
If Nemo has stumped up the second tranche of $9.9 million then why hasn't it been announced with all the accompanying fireworks, hoopla, a brass band and dancing girls? Why would it not be given prominence in the Application for Renewal? Get real.
You (and others) have never been able to suggest an underhand motive that would make sense for Smart Win refusing to provide the $1.1 million balance of the note. The serious cost overrun was a perfectly sound reason for them not doing so. It was in Smart Win's interest to see the hole drilled for the amount of the note as had been agreed from the outset and a failure for that to happen meant its funding initiative had come unstuck and miscarried. A decision to withold the remaining $1.1 million would not have been made lightly and was in the awareness of very probable legal consequences.
Empire continued to mobilise and erect the Hunt rig after it was evident that Smart Win had withdrawn support and then had it sit idle for months (the rig finally departed in June). Contrary to being locked out Empire announced further funding deals such as the one for $10 million described in the PR dated 20 February 2009 (it came to nothing, naturally).
Some pertinent dates are:
10-Q Quarterly report or the quarterly period ended: September 30, 2008 signed on 19 November, 2008:
"An additional AUD $1.1 million remains to be advanced but has not paid even though a request for the advance has been made."
PR dated 11 December 2008:
"The Hunt oil and gas drilling rig #3 has now been moved to the Bellevue #1 well site. The mast is intended to be raised today with the assistance of two large cranes. Inspection is expected to take one week and drilling is expected to begin immediately thereafter."
PR of 24 April 2009:
"Empire also states that Press Reports in respect of the Hunt Energy rig being moved are incorrect. The rig remains mast up on site at the Bellevue #1 well site and has not been dismantled."
The same thought had crossed my mind but producing a duck from that part of his anatomy seemed about as improbable as GSLM having spent $8 million over the two years of the EL.
Those who hoped Malcolm might pull something out of his hat haven't been disappointed. The only trouble is it looks more like a dead duck that a live rabbit.
No recognition of it today by TXO. They don't seem to want to know about it at all. Quo vadis Tim?