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.19 X .20? No rig?
.19 X .20? No rig?
Could'nt agree more. I believe the rig is still in play. Addax has too much riding on the JDZ to be playing footsie with an available rig. What he meant to say, IMHO, he delayed the announcement two weeks ago.
Not holding his breath for rig. Doesn't wash with Dan's comment of advanced negotiations with a roo. Like the $10.00 comment. Also he mentioned that they should have a better idea of reserves by the end of the year.
They keep nudging the bid up, but no one is biting on the .02 spread. Rumors of roo see to be just that. This would be screaming if it had any legs. Oily wrong? say it aint so.....
"In fact, the Wall Street Journal featured a story earlier this month that predicted a “big shakeout” in our industry as cash-strapped exploration and production companies scramble to find sources of revenue. It is good to be in a position of strength when others seeking help. I can tell you this: we are getting our calls returned!"
The million dollar question is, who are they calling? You would think that they, whoever they are, would be calling us. Hey David, share price is .19 HELP!!!!
If its the same old dog & pony show, I wouldn't expect anything. Hopefully they will be bringing something new to the table.
"Also, don't get any hopes up for the scheduled 11/08 Redchip conference."
As in they won't be there, or any new revelations as far as AIM listings, drilling etc.
Its good to see the company taking aggressive steps to promote the company while we wait for the ROO. My hope is that they stick with their "story" i.e. assests in the GOG. The other listings, acquisitions etc, throws them off message IMO. That is of course, if they actually have something substantial and credible.
This coming Monday would be very cool.
You got it right Maj, Ameritrade is screwed up.
What's with this .03 spread? MM's almost make it impossible to trade.
Anyone want to take a stab on this one?
He is absolutely clueless. And you can bank on that!!
Great reply.....eventhough I don't know what I know what I am replying to since I've put Stress, oops I mean Straus and his ilk on ignore. Makes life so much more serene!
Great, but can he get us a rig? LOL
Chukwueke: Some Oil Blocks Awarded After Bid Rounds
From Stanley Nkwazema in Abuja, 07.29.2008
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Suspended Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr Tony Chukwueke, yesterday admitted that some oil blocks were allocated after the bid rounds.
Chukwueke, while answering a question asked by the 26-man House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) oil blocks awards, said "let me say that an offer will precede an award. Yes, there were some awards which were made after the bid rounds at the discretion of the Minister and we take instructions from the Minister, The Minister has the powers under the Act to make those awards."
He also said "the award of OPL 236 to Oando was on the instruction of the Minister. We gave out what we found in the files and what we didn't find in the files, we can't give you. We did not find some of the documents in the file."
The committee had frowned at the fact that while some companies who were lawfully qualified for the bid rounds were excluded, with most of those that won up to seven blocks having the same promoters.
Chuwkwueke said "all is aimed at improving the local content partnership. Nigerian companies complained and the minister asked them to form consortiums during the road shows and the bid conferences. 369 companies applied and the committee did not have the opportunity of going to the CAC to verify records of all the companies. We decided that those without identities be disqualified. But the companies that emerged where those of the LC vehicles that the ministries merged to be equal to the number of blocks that we had. They were 45 in number at the end of the day.
"When we got the qualified list from the Ministry, we did not question it. If we found out that some companies or names were repeated, that is where the contradiction came from. What I can say is that when we carried out our variation, we sent a list to the Ministry and they came back with the same lists.
"If you look at the data they supplied to us, you would see that the information did not indicate this multiple directors and we are just discovering that and will take it up as soon as possible. The DPR is not independent and relies on directives that emanates from the Ministry that supervises the department. The LC vehicles were chosen by the operators after they won the blocks. We opened the envelopes and also opened the second envelopes to check names of local companies. If you look at the Petrobras and Statoil blocks, they chose their local content. The same thing goes for ASK which emerged after a merger,"
On the bid rounds proper he said, "for the 2005 bid rounds, iwe ensured that all the PSC that were signed were paid. There was also a letter of Credit on some blocks and a committee was set up by the Federal Government to further give them time to settle the debts. DPR was asked to comply with the directive."
On the protests by Starcrest Investments Limited against Starcrest Energy Nigeria, Chief Emefo Etudo, a director of the company alleged that "about 10 persons, powerful individuals connived and cornered $35 million. They were able to seize an oil block. We have a record of money that exchanged hands. They used one company which is non-existent. They used funny names to seize OPL 229 in August 6, 2006," Emefo said.
He alleged that it was Chuekwueke who offered them OPL 291 and made another offer in the name of Starcrest Nigeria Energy, while " the paymaster was Addax who in June 2006 paid $13million without taking part in the 2006 bid round. They paid for the block they did not bid for. One Iliasu from the EFCC was the IPO, they used $35million of other country's money," he said and asked the committee to "summon the bankers to deal in Port Harcourt you will get further facts on the internet. The company was not in operation when the Right of First refusal was purportedly granted. Without going through the document we sent, the new Minister of State Energy (Petroleum) Mr Odein Ajumogobia said we did not have a case. He, therefore, called on the House to direct the EFCC to forward excerpts of the investigation on the petition by Starcrest Investments against Addax and others involved in the allegation.
Chukwueke also told the committee that payments were not effected or received on OPL 723, 228, 234, 235,274,275,278,281,287,288,289, 290 and 252 in 2005 bid rounds because the PSCs were yet to be signed, pleading that he be allowed to change his earlier statement.
The committee also discovered that in the 2005 bid rounds, while $2,629,275,667 was recorded as income, only $1,71,246,277billion was actually paid into various accounts by the DPR and some of the companies like Oando paying in naira while others made payments in foreign currency.
The investigations continues today at the Conference Room of the House of Representatives new complex
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Sub-Saharan Africa goes offshore in bid to be a bigger player
By Vaughan O’Grady
Many of sub-Saharan Africa’s newest and most promising oil finds have been offshore, making it easier to transport the oil to the thirsty refineries of the major economies. But that is by no means the only reason for the recent boom in oil exploration and production throughout the continent.
Sub-Saharan Africa — the African regions south of the Sahara — can be a challenging place for an oil company to operate: Infrastructure is often limited — and sometimes nonexistent; governments may be difficult to work with; and financial transparency and health and security are by no means guaranteed. No wonder a lot of major oil companies have for many years taken the apparently easier option of working in established oil-producing areas like Europe, the U.S. and the Middle East.
Until now, that is. In recent years, countries not previously associated with oil, like Ghana, Madagascar, Chad, Uganda, Kenya and Mozambique, have been attracting the interest not only of independent oil companies, which are more willing to take a chance on relatively untried markets, but of some of the majors like Exxon, Eni and Chevron, and even national oil companies with such diverse origins as Austria, China, Malaysia and Portugal.
Of course, sub-Saharan oil exploration is not new. Nigeria has for decades been the continent’s leading oil producer and one of the world’s major exporters. More recently, peace in Angola has boosted oil exports and fueled a reconstruction boom.
“Angola has become fertile ground for exploration since the country began its program of reconstruction in 2002,” says London-based Robert Wine, spokesman for BP Angola, a unit of the U.K. oil major. Large resources have been found in deepwater, technically challenging, offshore blocks, but companies such as BP, in conjunction with Sonangol, have the global expertise to develop these economically, he says. Sonangol is an Angolan parastatal that manages the country’s hydrocarbon resources.
New territories
Recently, however, activity has been moving from these established areas to new territories. There are a number of reasons for this. Oil quality is one.
“West African oil is mostly low-sulphur and light to medium gravity, which means it’s attractive to refiners,” says Roy Jordan, oil economist at Energy Market Consultants UK Ltd., a London-based company that specializes in the analysis and forecasting of long- and short-term developments in international oil and gas markets. This is in part because they are under pressure from Western governments keen to eliminate sulphur from transportation fuels for environmental reasons — a much less expensive business if the oil is low-sulphur already.
Africa is also conveniently situated geographically to serve both North American and European markets. The west coast is especially well positioned.
Thomas Pearmain, London-based energy analyst, sub-Saharan Africa, at forecasting company Global Insight Inc. of Boston, explains that oil from this area has open sea lanes to the U.S. He adds: “West African crude is predominantly light and sweet and tends to be in high demand by the refineries on the East Coast of the U.S., as it is more easily refined.”
This positional advantage is further enhanced by the fact that many recent finds are not on the mainland. As Andrew Grosse, exploration and technical director of Sterling Energy in London, an upstream oil and gas company, points out: “In Africa, a fair amount of the prospective open acreage is offshore and most of our acreage is on the western margin of Africa, within easy reach of the U.S. East Coast.”
Going offshore lessens the security, health and infrastructure problems that could be associated with onshore work in Africa. But the oil still has to be brought to the surface in difficult conditions. It’s just as well, therefore, that modern drilling technology has made it easier to get at. “Technological advances have really helped in deepwater exploration; companies are now exploring and producing in more than 2,000 meters of water,” Mr. Grosse says.
Mr. Jordan of Energy Market Consultants cites other important technological advances such as horizontal drilling, which applies both onshore and offshore, and improved application and evaluation of seismic activity, which allows a quicker and better view of where reservoirs could be. Equally important, he says, are improvements to transportation technology. Floating production and storage facilities are supporting oil company efforts offshore. “This means that they can produce the oil, store it and then transport it — all close to the well offshore,” Mr. Jordan adds.
Quality and technology may help make oil and gas exploration in sub-Saharan Africa easier but, as Mr. Grosse points out, the real drivers are much simpler: availability and access. The North Sea and the U.S. are mature areas where production is declining. By contrast, estimated onshore and offshore reserves for the African continent are significantly higher (as much as 10% of the world total, according to some analysts) and most of it, until recently, underexploited.
In the Middle East, there are other challenges. Although the region contains most of the world’s oil reserves, access is often limited. In countries like Saudi Arabia, Western oil companies can only work on a service contract basis. Add war in Iraq, sanctions in Iran and continuing fears about security and supply and you have a less-than-attractive working environment.
There are problems elsewhere, too. As Mr. Pearmain of Global Insight notes: “Over the past couple of years there has been a trend known as resource nationalism, where countries which have commercial reserves of oil have been changing the terms of the contracts to increase the government’s revenue. This is played out throughout Latin America and in Russia especially.”
Africa, however, is different. Says Mr. Jordan of Energy Market Consultants: “In many countries in Africa, particularly where there hasn’t in the past been production, they have been obliged to make the terms and conditions reasonably attractive to bring people in to explore and then to produce.”
Meanwhile, oil prices have escalated, and demand — especially from booming economies like India and China — is growing. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that previously ignored territories like Ghana and Uganda have become so attractive. And they are getting more attractive by the day. The share price of Tullow Oil, an exploration and production company listed on the London Stock Exchange, rose more than 150% in 12 months as estimates of the potential of its find off the coast of Ghana last year increased to nearly two billion barrels.
Inland Uganda is another promising prospect for the company, and a useful reminder that it’s not just offshore — or indeed West Africa — where opportunities can be found. For example, although Sterling Energy has operations in Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea Bissau and Mauritania, Mr. Grosse is particularly excited about his company’s acreage in Madagascar — and with good reason. It’s so promising a prospect that the company is being partnered by oil giant Exxon to exploit it.
Of course, companies like Sterling have historically been at the forefront of activities in so-called frontier territories. “The smaller companies have always been risk-takers,” Mr. Grosse says. But Exxon’s involvement is, he suggests, an indication of what’s happening within global markets at the moment. The majors need to keep up their volumes of reserves; hence Exxon has gone with Sterling into Madagascar. “It’s a frontier basin,” Mr. Grosse says. “There’s no production offshore but there are some very large prospects which if successful will make an impact even to companies of Exxon’s size.”
Nor are they alone. Not just the big private companies but, says Mr. Jordan of Energy Market Consultants, less familiar names. National oil companies from Austria, China, India, Malaysia, Portugal and South Korea, to name only a few are now, or have been, in Africa looking for oil. “One of the reasons,” Mr. Jordan says, “is that we are seeing a tightening in the world oil supply and therefore refiners in oil-importing countries are going to need access to crude in the future.”
And given the size of recent finds, Africa may be where they find it. As Mr. Pearmain of Global Insights points out, no one thought a two-billion-barrel oil field would exist offshore Ghana. And with Kenya, Madagascar and Uganda looking promising, perhaps “East Africa will be the next big play for oil exploration,” he suggests.
Of course it may be some time before any new fields reach the output of, say, Nigeria, where U.S.-based integrated energy company Chevron, through its subsidiary Chevron Nigeria Ltd., has been able to announce net oil-equivalent production in 2007 of 129,000 barrels a day, with new projects likely to add significantly to that number by late 2009.
Africa’s new frontier
Nevertheless, the potential of Africa’s new frontier is clear. Barring a continent-wide economic or social collapse, it appears that there are enough prospects to make sub-Saharan Africa popular with oil producers for some time to come. And with available oil supply tightening and non-OPEC production capacity and potential by no means guaranteed to rise, many analysts are convinced that three-digit oil prices are here to stay. “Anywhere where there’s a possibility of finding new oil is going to be potentially attractive to an investor,” Mr. Jordan says.
Clearly, a region that is conveniently situated for transport and offers a high-grade product which technology has made easier and cheaper to retrieve could be seen as attractive to investors. But the bottom line is much simpler. As Mr. Grosse of Sterling Energy points out: “In Africa there is still prospective acreage that can be licensed — so that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Nigeria Militants Attack Oil Pipelines
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By REUTERS
Published: July 28, 2008
Filed at 8:43 a.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph ABUJA (Reuters) - Militants in Nigeria's Niger Delta said on Monday they had attacked two major oil pipelines belonging to Royal Dutch Shell, forcing the firm to halt some production and helping push world oil prices higher.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), whose campaign of violence has cut Nigeria's oil output by around a fifth since early 2006, said its members conducted the attacks in the early hours of Monday morning.
"Detonation engineers backed by heavily armed fighters ... sabotaged two major pipelines in Rivers state of Nigeria," it said in an e-mailed statement.
Shell, which operates onshore in Nigeria in a joint venture with state oil firm NNPC, said it had halted some output from the Nembe Creek trunkline but gave no details on the volume.
Industry sources said about 130,000 barrels per day of crude oil flows through the pipeline to the Bonny export terminal in Nigeria, the world's eighth largest exporter.
Oil from the facility is popular in the United States and Europe because it is easily refined into gasoline, diesel and other crude products.
U.S. crude oil prices rose on the news, trading above $124 a barrel on Monday.
WARNING
The Shell-operated pipeline has been a target of previous militant attacks, most recently in May, due to its vulnerable location in the deep forests of the delta -- the heart of Nigerian production.
Last week, MEND warned it would target oil pipelines to prove it did not receive payments from the government to end its attacks on the oil sector. The head of NNPC was quoted in Nigerian newspapers last week as saying the company had paid militant groups $12 million to protect facilities in the delta.
NNPC later said it was quoted out of context and the money was given to the local community, not militants.
Successive administrations in Nigeria have effectively bought off leaders of militant groups in the Niger Delta by offering financial rewards for laying down their weapons, a strategy known locally as "settling the boys."
MEND says it is fighting for greater control of the natural resources in the delta, an impoverished area polluted by half a century of oil exploration.
President Umaru Yar'Adua has pledged to try to address the root causes of the unrest in the delta by bringing development to local communities but has also said he will not tolerate the presence of armed groups in the creeks.
Plans for a long-delayed peace summit promised by his administration have fallen into disarray after a key government-appointed mediator resigned this month and MEND said it would not take part.
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Catherine Evans
Just like the idea of keeping us up to speed. It was reasurring when we had that run of pr's and conferences etc. IMO. Hopefully they will be able to fill in some of the blanks and connect at least some of the dots that have been floating around.
With the volume being so low, I suggest that they are betting on #2 without any knowledge of inside information. With that info, there would be a stampede instead of a slow exit. IMO
I sold 10M at.40. 650 of it was filled early and the 9350 sold towards the end of the trading session. My conclusion is that the stock will scream to .70 on Monday. LOL
PPS? Iam having trouble with alpha trade
Thanks Umbra, good post
Works just fine.
How about thinking about 5 bucks right about now!LOL
Looks like someone is taking a position. I hope its not a momo play.
I still have faith that Netphe is going to deliver on his promise soon on the AIM. This has nothing to do with drilling and I can't imagine why he would even waste his time talking about it in SF & London when he could have spent hours on talking about the JDZ alone, much less the EEZ. A dill ship announcement will be icing on the cake. IMHO
Another disgruntled STPer that can't get over the original treaty. Obviously that article is baseless IMO.
Any positive reinforcement from either ERHE or Addax about the AA or the "rig of opportunity" would definately help.
We have cash, and full carries into production, EEL dose not, which make us far more attractive IMO. What would be the buyout price for EEL? PN said the new company would come from a separate pool of assets. I like to have one of those pools in my back yard LOL. As they "show me the money" and it seems like all those deep pockets at SF and London are waiting for that as well according to our .41pps.
Does it have a date of the acquasition? Nothing filed publicly? No mention of these properties, that I'm aware of at the SF and London presentations. Lokks like we've been spending money other than on legal fees.
I seew no, one so far has added anything to the discussion as far as the points that you raised. PN said this new listing would give ERHE shareholders "realised and substantial value". That sounds to me like they have a revemue producing company in mind.
ERHE would be spending money on EEL when none of the majors wont touch it with a ten foot pole.
Petrobas, Addax, or any of the other larger company would have a hard time explainibg to their shareholders about buying one Nigerian oil company without proven much less two.
.....an oilphant posting that actually makes sense...Nah, I must be dreaming.
Lets hope for another suprise weekend like Easter. Dril ship, AIM listing....XOM buyot for $25.00 pps!
$103 in 2015? Well we're not going to get there all at once. So lets say $14.71 by the end of this year. LOL
Ameritrade is consistantly wrong: .41 x .415 (unfortunately)
Yet one more clear, concise point. Is there any Kool-Aid left?
Thanks Opus. As spider says, today starts the 3rd. qtr. I believe Addex has the drill parts needed on order, and hope springs eternal!
"In terms of risk, any delay in either the delivery schedule of rigs or in deploying them, significant drop in rig rentals and lower-than-expected utilisation rates for the rigs pose a downside risk to Aban’s business."
It would seem to me that their interest would be to get the AA out of drydock ASAP. BTW did you see their pps. !!!