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Nope.
No surprise there.
How do you know that Smart Win did not provide "timely required default notice" in not proceeding with the loan?
Please provide support for your statement. A link would serve nicely.
The COS for Bellevue is 2% and Thunderbolt 0.72%, it's there in the RPS Energy report and there's no getting away from it. Empire Energy refuses to acknowledge it is the case and it is misleading for them to speak ad nauseum of billions of dollars of assets.
The extremely low probability of finding oil is every investor's business. Sweeping it under the carpet and pretending it is not so is delusional behaviour.
What Mr Sehsuvaroglu and the deceased accountant Mr Callaway may or may not have believed is rather beside the point.
The COS of Bellevue containing commercial oil is only 2% (actually less than that) as estimated by an independent and highly professional consulting firm. That is an extremely low figure by petroleum exploration standards.
hmmm .... so do you think Smart Win would have paid for good legal advice from a New York law firm or they decided instead to economise and get it for free off Internet message boards?
Interesting. So you are saying Smart Win brought its action only to be scared off and go into complete reverse because Empire responded with its ludicrous counteraction for $1.1 billion.
If anything at all is obvious it's that your fantastic scenario isn't going to happen.
With the Chinese Navy just having launched its first aircraft carrier they will probably be looking for a steady reliable supply of JP-5 jet fuel. It would not be surprising if while he is in Asia Malcolm calls in to Beijing and offers them a deal. It would make for a great PR too when he returns:
FUNDING AGREEMENT CLOSE TO BEING SIGNED, DRILLING TO START VERY SOON, CHINESE NAVY TO BUY EMPIRE JP-5 JET FUEL, NEW HIGGS BOSON TECHNOLOGY ACQUIRED
H
If Surprise-1 is successful wouldn't it make sense for the Hunt rig to settle in and drill more test/production wells on the Surprise structure?
If Bendall was legit and EEGC's Faser thingamagig was more efficient and cheaper, there will be a huge market for it IMO.
We have not seen any independent appraisal of the the GTL technology, only Bendall's inexpert blitherings on the subject.
Some questions that need answering before the technology can be taken seriously are:
1. Who invented this Gas To Liquid world-beating wizardry and how did the rights to such a supposedly valuable property get into the hands of a small-time company operator? Knowing its provenance and what is being done elsewhere with the non-Americas rights might inspire a little confidence that it's not just a lot of hot air.
2. Where is there any expert's report attesting to the technology being an innovative breakthrough as to its technical/engineering performance and business competitiveness? All we have at this time is Bendall's word for it and on his past performances that is not always reliable (to put it mildly).
3. Where is there any independent expert's report that the transaction whereby Bendall sold his rights to Empire Energy for $21 million was fair and reasonable? It was not an arms length deal and how are shareholders to know they have not been taken for a ride?
3. Is the cost to develop and bring the technology to market still $300 million as was stated previously?
4. Empire Enegy obviously could not attain all of the identified regional market of USD $2.7 billion per year so what would be a realistic target if the technology is what it is claimed to be?
The FASER story is so nebulous and insubstantial I wouldn't even know where to begin to ask what it is supposed to be about. But you've got to admit that Force Amplication by Stimulated Electron Resonance based on stimulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate and excitation of the Frolich resonance sounds like a very promising start.
Will the SPP if well subscribed plus what other funds that are to hand be enough to drill Madigan (or its alternative) for CTP? Obviously the share price would need to lift to/above the 5.5c mark.
It has a bearing on where the the Hunt 3 rig goes in February - stays with CTP or is freed up possibly (but not necessarily) for GSLM.
Linc Energy seems quite satisfied with the Fischer-Tropsch GTL process in its Queensland demonstration plant:
http://www.lincenergy.com/underground_coal_gasification.php
Anyway, Empire doesn't have the Australian rights to the Bendall-Abracadabra GTL process so CTP would need to hire a private investigator to find out who does.
You will be an old man before CTP gets UCG up and running in the Pedirka Basin.
What chance the Surprise lateral hole? It sounds like there were sufficient indications to drill the lateral but not good enough to make a big splash about.
It's one thing to have an independent opinion identify a potential market of billions of dollars but it's quite another to get into it with a new technology (no independent expert seems to have verified its claimed superiority) and make a handsome profit. Haven't you recognised the time-honored Bendall technique yet? - the $2.7 billion figure is there for the starry-eyed hopefuls (like the $1.1 billion counterclaim against Smart Win is that Malcolm keeps on stressing and you have bought hook, line and sinker). The billions roll very easily off the tongue with this little two bit company.
Speaking of expert opinions, one I would really like to see is on the fairness and reasonableness of the transaction of CEO Bendall selling to Empire his putatively marvellous technology for $21 million. There is only a deafening silence on that one.
Malcolm skillfully underwrote the Rights Offering with his $50 million personal line of credit. Thanks for the laugh.
Empire has previously validated the business case and has obtained an independent opinion providing forecast revenues based on an estimated regional market of approximately USD $2.7 billion per year.
Very impressive. The $20 million odd Empire paid Malcolm for it was a steal.
It makes the $53 million oil revenue forecast for this year look like petty cash.
How much higher than a billion dollars do you think the damages award could go? With a sympathetic judge maybe two, three billion?
There will still be lots of excitement in a few months time even if GSLM comes to grief. There will be the fantastic Flare Gas technology, the Bose-Einstein condensate machine powered FASER, and the medical waste zapping machine all to sing the praises of.
Maybe some other great technologies will be injected too - Malcolm probably has more up his sleeve. The Higgs Boson particle is all the go at the moment so I wouldn't be surprised if some nifty new technology could be invented to harness it to do something enormously profitable.
And we would still be able to check out the daily oil price like we do now even though we don't have any oil to sell, so no change there.
WHY OH WHY WOULD TXO GIVE ONE STINKING DOLLAR TO EEGC??????
Good question, why indeed? If this NBD partners declines Malcolm's proposal then TXO/TOGL evidently doesn't have the financial muscle to do the job.
"Asia" with a London connection sounds suspiciously like Hong Kong again. If so Smart Win will be watching with interest.
I have no idea what you are talking about and what your point is if there is one.
The first press release that hits your eye at the website is the one headed up
Tuesday October 26, 2010
Empire Formally Re-acquires Grand Monarch Holdings, Directors Travel to Middle East to Finalize $180 Million Structured Finance Transaction, Rig Set to Return to Bellevue
The TXO public release says nothing at all about Empire Energy and TXO's capacity for investing in it. It concerns TXO's business with Morgan Oil which is of no relevance to Empire Energy. IMO submitting it as an 8-K under the guise that it involved Empire served no useful purpose.
Whether funding can be obtained from the prospective Asian funder NBD partners remains to be seen. This looks to be the last throw of the dice and the numerous past funding failures don't inspire a lot of confidence.
Why would they mention a TXO PR that says nothing about EEGC?
Good question.
Why would they offer to sell 5.5 million B/yr of JP-5 jet fuel to the US Navy for USD$200 per barrel when they have no oil and no oil refinery?
Why do they talk of having a multibillion dollar oil asset when they have no oil?
This one deserves to be straightened out:
Apparently TXO believe the cos to range 20-40% according to some poster on advfn!
It sounds a bit like he might be referring to the terse "calculation" done by a Ramsay A. Barrett, Petroleum Geologist of Virginia Energy Consultants, LLC that appears in a one and a half page letter dated June 14, 2010 which is included as Appendix G in the Due Diligence Report of January 2011.
Mr Barrett performed what he called a "quick look estimation" of the "Chance of Geologic Success" and arrived at a figure of 35%.
Barrett's inputs and calculation are extremely crude and stand no comparison with the sophisticated and in-depth approach of RPS Energy (who estimated a COS of 2% for Bellevue). His off-the-top-of-the head parameters are exaggerated and the calculation method employed is not the full and complete procedure necessary to give a meaningful result.
Why Mr Barrett's half-baked doodlings should have been included in the DD Report along with the later and authoritative RPS Energy study is something of a mystery.
A Google check of Virginia Energy Consultants, LLC revealed the following:
About Virginia Energy Consultants LLC
Virginia Energy Consultants LLC in Marshall, VA is a private company categorized under Lease Tanks, Oil Field: Erecting, Cleaning, and Repairing. Our records show it was established in 2001 and incorporated in Virginia. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $150,000 and employs a staff of approximately 2.
Business Categories
Lease tanks, oil field: erecting, cleaning, and repairing in Marshall, VA Land Leasing & Oil/Gas Exploration Svcs Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations
While TXO is at liberty to believe whatever they wish to the fact remains that RPS Energy is the only available detailed assessment of the prospectivity carried out by an independent and highly professional consulting organisation.
In the Due Diligence Report (Jan 2011) the cost of a GEFCO SpeedStar 1100 Rig and Equipment is given as $8 million.
Interestingly, even with the bought rig the cost of "Completion of Bellevue Site" is given as $6.231 million and "Completion of Thunderbolt Site" as $5.019 million, also the cost of "Mobilization/Demobilization" to be $1.5 million. On those figures you'd have to wonder what the value of buying a rig could be.
TXO is falling as fast as they went up, from 1.05p to 0.85p today.
John Garrison was Chief Financial Officer of Empire Energy when David Villareal was appointed Chairman and I suggest you read Villareal's letter of acceptance in the PR of 27 September 2010 to learn what he saw his role with Empire Energy as being. It included:
My interest is in the deployment of successful strategies and implementation of ideas and concepts that create results driven to satisfy the interests of all at Empire even with the full knowledge of its history of challenges and obstacles. An expression I heard and remembered many years ago said, “Encouraged people achieve the best; dominated people achieve second best; neglected people achieve the least.” So with respect to its author, I suggest that we at Empire encourage all of our investors, shareholders and supporters, dominate those that challenge our mission and neglect those that would claim or attempt to take that which they have not worked for and disrupt our due success.
I welcome the challenge and task ahead to create new and broader opportunities and therewith a propensity for greater success with the Board of Directors leadership and insight for all at Empire Energy Corporation International.
Villareal's duties with Empire were obviously more considerable than those described for Grand Monarch Holdings (your link) and he gave no indication that he expected his stay at Empire to be only short term in the interests of conserving Company funds. His main contribution (as Chairman of Empire) appears to have been to invite Hunter Wise to raise the extraordinary amount of $200 million (see PR of 9 December 2010) which initiative disappeared without trace (hardly surprising).
He resigned (along with Leach and Ballantyne) in order to "focus on other personal business interests" which couldn't have panned out so well seeing that he is back again.
Garrison was still CFO in January 2011 when the Due Diligence Report is dated. We are now blandly informed that Ms Chesterman is to be CFO so we were not advised of Garrison's resignation as the CFO some time during 2011.
The lateral completion announced of 700 metres in Surprise 1 means Hunt rig #3 will be tied up for a good while yet. It will be slow drilling to get around the bend.
If that is the royal "we" you may well be right.
David Villareal doesn't seem to know whether he is coming or going, and Nicole Chesterman is a long time employee of GSLM and not some talented outsider who has been attracted by Empire's glorious future.
Heraclitus:
With the results of testing Surprise due early this week followed by the closing of CTP's share purchase plan on Friday (assuming no further extension) the future movement of the Hunt 3 rig should be clearer by the end of next week.
Talk of Empire buying and operating a large capacity drilling rig (and shipping one promptly from the USA!) is just pie in the sky in my opinion. The ancillary equipment required (including rods, casing, pumps, stands, front end loader etc. etc.) and the supplies and logistics for operation are formidable requiring real expertise and not some Keystone Cops approach. Even large established exploration companies settle for using contracting firms for very good reason.
thedriver might have some more comments to make.
TXO didn't say that Empire is essentially debt free. TXO's injection apparently had the purpose of retiring some aggrieved creditors who were breathing down Empire's neck and prejudicing fund raising efforts (assuming no malarkey has gone on with this Better Loyal Investments who appeared out of nowhere).
I'm still awaiting with interest your backup that Smart Win undertook or expressed a willingness to make any payment additional to its formally committed $5 million.
It is known from drill holes to extend discontinuously through the Tasmania Basin, but so what? The contained hydrocarbons are not in a liquid/gaseous phase and would not be released in fraccing (even if the aggregate thickness were amenable to fraccing which doesn't look to be the case). Retorting of the mined shale at surface to release the "oil" is a high temperature distillation process.
The main Tasmanite oil shale mining and retorting was carried out near Latrobe in the early 1900s. An earlier small scale venture in 1861 soon folded.
Two companies (Mersey Valley Oil Co and Adelaide Oil Exploration Co) did actually drill the Latrobe area in 1920 looking for liquid oil but they only encountered the Tasmanite.
Beyond being suggested in a general sense to represent a possible source bed for migrated and trapped oil Tasmanite oil shale has no connection at all with drilling for petroleum. It does not represent a target despite what the misleading Bellevue hole section indicates.
The fact that heavy oil can be retorted from oil shale has no relevance to GSLM's exploration for petroleum accumulations.
There are very many oil shale deposits around the world that do not have petroleum fields associated with them.
There has long been a disconnect between the words and deeds of Empire and I don't really expect this time to be any different. Shareholders who have been around for a few years have learned not to get carried away with the grandiose aspirations of PRs.
I for one don't believe for a moment this minnow of a Company which is down on its uppers has managed to get its hands on two world-beating new technologies. The first thing taught in MBA 101 is that if something looks too good to be true then it very probably isn't true. In any case I am here for the oil exploration but in 6½ years I have yet to see a single well completed.
What joint venture and with whom if one is done? From the PR:
Empire has forwarded draft agreements and obtained a commitment from the principals to proceed, with negotiations, to finance the Tasmanian oil project through a joint venture with an Asian financier, NBD partners.
$50 million for 14 wells isn't going to happen. One doesn't need an MBA to know that, just a little common sense.
It would be interesting to know what the Missouri Economic Development Organizations makes of the grand plans to coopt them into the wonder technologies.
I thought the Fabulous Flare Gas Technology was going to cost $300 million to develop and bring to market but now it seems it will be a piece of cake to get it up and running. Even so, it is now playing second fiddle to the Bose-Einstein machine powered FASER so we have run out of superlatives to describe that.
This Missouri facility that is going to handle the Flare Gas Technology, FASER and mobile medical waste and recycling modules must be one mind blowing setup.
If you are referring to the Tasmanite oil shale that is not a target for GSLM's petroleum exploration. If you are referring to the Lonnavale "seep" then that occurrence (such as it is) is apparently sourced from the Tasmanite and has nothing to do with the main targets to be investigated at Bellevue and Thunderbolt.
I could have clarified what I said by stating NOT ONE SINGLE BARREL OF OIL has yet been discovered by drilling in onshore Tasmania. That is a FACT.
It is well to treat any off-the-record "information" you receive with great caution. This stock has a long and unhappy history of false claims being made for it. You should be especially sceptical of claims of extraordinary amounts of oil being present in GSLM's licence area. The fact is that no oil at all has yet been discovered onshore Tasmania and the project is highly speculative.
The game TXO is playing is unclear but we can be certain of one thing - 14 holes will not be drilled before the exploration licence expires in May. Malcolm has really given the game away with that absurdity and it makes you wonder how much else of the PR is delusional. The reappearance of the "significant damages of over $1 Billion" from Smart Win is indicative that some real windmill tilting is going on here.
We will be lucky to see one hole drilled at each of Bellevue and Thunderbolt. It's strange that a Mt Lloyd dome has made its debut at this time, a dome RPS Energy had not heard of and which has every appearance of being some padding to try to fatten the pudding for the benefit of the guys with the cheque book somewhere in "Asia".
Negotiations, it's only EEGC's proposal. If it's anything like the Saudi Arabia trip we'll never hear any more about it.
But the plane should find Asia okay, it's pretty well due east of London.
From the EEGC PR of 6 September 2011:
Empire has provided TXO Plc with an option to invest up to $5 million via a convertible loan instrument, in exchange for a 49% interest in Empire’s Tasmanian exploration license
From the TXO Release of 8 September 2011:
1) a convertible loan agreement under which TXO has made an initial payment of US$100,000 and whereby, subject to raising a further US$4.9m, TXO would have the right to fund the drilling program and operating expenses of Empire, with the call option, entirely at the Company’s discretion, on conversion to acquire 49% of Empire’s oil drilling licence in Tasmania, Australia.
From (today's) EEGC PR of 6 December 2011:
Empire has forwarded draft agreements and obtained a commitment from the principals to proceed, with negotiations, to finance the Tasmanian oil project through a joint venture with an Asian financier, NBD partners. Through the proposal, NBD partners intend to earn a 49% interest in the Tasmanian Basin tenement, held by Great South Land Minerals Ltd, EL14/2009, in exchange for an investment of USD $50 million.
Since we have been informed that TXO/TOGL has a firm option to obtain a 49% JV interest in the exploration licence by investing $5 million via a convertible loan, and now we are told that an Asian financier (NBD partners) has been offered a 49% interest in the licence tenement for an investment of $50 million ..... I don't have an MBA but I make it that EEGC would be left with only a 2% interest in the total project (for $55 million) if both parties were to complete. 2% sounds familiar - oh yes, it's the chance of success of Bellevue discovering oil so that would seem about right.
Empire hasn't been able to complete one well in the 6½ years since the GSLM merger and now we are told there are 14 to be drilled in the remaining 4-5 months. Oh please, Malcolm ...
The closer the May deadline approaches the more frenetic the PRs are becoming.