San Leon Energy Share Discussion Threads

[alaric7] 29/4/2019 10:52

apologies echoridge - correction, you did of course immediately pick up the factual debate on Eroton after I had posted on the LSE board.

[alaric7] 29/4/2019 10:03

spot on echoridge, as ever. I had indeed seen Divmad as a victim of the defamatory posting campaign, which has (as a matter of fact) gone on on both these boards over time and not, wittingly at least, a perpetrator of it. And thus you see how these libels get, perhaps sometimes unwittingly, picked up and repeated. Ergo this 'metastasis' is deeply corrosive if it is left unchecked, as again we have seen here over time. So perhaps helpful if I clarified the law on corporate defamation, since so many posters on these boards (and the boards themselves, as publishers) are so often casual about this. I found the following definition, which is a competent legal description.
'A corporation is defamed if material is published about that corporation that would tend to negatively impact its standing in the business in which it operates. Although a company or corporation is not considered to have a reputation in the sense that an individual does, statements that would impact the public’s view of a company’s financial soundness or managerial integrity are generally considered defamatory to a company’s business reputation. A company or corporation may sue for defamation if such statements would tend to deter others from dealing with it.'
In the UK, a company also has to demonstrate actual financial loss or likelihood of it. However you may imagine how writing on public fora, that such and such a company is going bust or is in poor financial health could be very damaging to that company. And, if not true, how that would on the face of things be actionable by the company.
Turning to the substantive issues of Divmad's original post, I did, as echoridge indicated earlier, address a factually based response to this on the LSE board, where the verbatim question had been posed there by Olderandwiser. And I am very happy to debate on the facts, as anyone who knows me on these boards will confirm, but no one has so far picked me up on this debate. And so you can see how this malignant story spread to another board - lucky I was there to check it! Only one answer to all this - be more careful when you're publishing an implicitly negative statement about a company's financial health or be prepared to back up that statement with substantive evidence

[divmad] 29/4/2019 08:39

I totally agree that Eroton's financial position has never been as good as it appears now, with NNPC posing up its back liabilities, or most of them at least . My initial point took that into consideration, however. In potentially going after an additional % interest in OML18, plus the forward looking capex required to fund the stated growth in production over the next five years, plus passing dividends to its shareholders, is a tough business decision for them to have to make . And since Eroton has simply swapped one RBL facility for a sweeter one, means that they haven't got the cash resources to fund the extra % interest, should it come up for sale. That's where Sle should come in, to fund the extra as it does have the cash resources. But then we were all expecting large cash distributions made from surplus cash, so I go back to my original point, how will sle square the circle of the conflicting demands on its cash? A nice problem to have, by the way. Now, is that corrosive or defamatory or illegal?

[echoridge] 29/4/2019 07:41

And for the record, I am the same person who posts as 'bluerill' on lse. I don't know why I chose another nickname for this board, but I did it long ago and didn't realise I was actually able to post here until recently. However, the important thing is I promised Jabba the historyman I would take him on directly, so here I am. Let's do this thing....

[echoridge] 29/4/2019 07:32

No divmad, I think you're misreading Alaric's point. Since it is self-evident that Eroton has not been in this healthy a financial position in the entire time San Leon have been partnered with them, I reckon Alaric feels that, giving you the benefit of the doubt, the only way you could seemingly have developed the opposite view is due to a multi-year misinformation effort by other posters on this board and others, like historyman and a rogues gallery of others, over time. Perhaps he is accusing you of being among their number, but I don't read it that way.

[divmad] 29/4/2019 06:54

Alaric, you simply have no idea what you are talking about, do you. Using such words as defamatory or corrosive to spin your invective against anyone trying to simulate debate, is the vilest form of BB posting imho. Quite nearly as contemptible as intentional but self interested ramping or de-ramping, neither of which I am in favour of our have ever practised.So just dismount from your high horse and stick to a factual discussion in future.

[echoridge] 29/4/2019 02:05

Adding to the suspicious behaviour of course, is the fact that the same falsely-premised question gets asked on both boards by posters with different nicknames

[alaric7] 28/4/2019 22:43

thanks echoridge. what concerns me about the assumed false premise for this question (viz.that Eroton are facing financial difficulties) is that it is another example of just how corrosive the many fraudulent misrepresentations about San Leon's business have been over time. like the supposed armageddon scenarios relating to both Avobone and Sun Trust, painted by certain interested troll posters beforehand, the Eroton one has been perpetrated in a drip drip fashion recently both on this board and on the lse one. such posting is almost certainly illegal and defamatory. we need to remain ever watchful and be prepared to call out any posters who continue this disgusting behaviour.

[echoridge] 27/4/2019 18:20

alaric answers this very same question brilliantly on the lse board, divmad. As he points out, the question's very premise is 180 degrees the wrong way around, basically. Firstly, eroton's financial position is the healthiest its been since the financial crisis. Furthermore, both it and san leon will obviously be looking to up their stakes in OML18 should any part of the government's holding come up for sale, as they are both in rude financial health and it would be enormously accretive to do so (or, as Alaric so eloquently puts it, 'they'd be crazy not to'). In fact, given the success of eroton and san leon's stewardship of this field as drilling new wells has begun to accelerate again, our company's profile in country has continued to improve and upping their stake in this prolific field would be a logical next step in its development. As to what form any acquisition would take - from direct sale to Eroton and/or SanLeon (which would allow sle to own part of the field directly), or through the current structure using the holdco Martwestern where sle owns its stake in the field indirectly - is of course anyone's guess.

[echoridge] 27/4/2019 17:58

alaric answers the same question brilliantly on the lse board. the question's very premise is 180 degrees the wrong way around, basically. firstly, eroton's financial position is the healthiest its been since the financial crisis. furthermore, both it and san leon will obviously be looking to up their stakes in OML18

[divmad] 27/4/2019 07:43

How will Eroton be able to afford to pick up extra % interests in OML18, given its financial condition? And if I means Sle looking through its share interest in Eroton to allow this to happen, what are the implications for Sle's cash distribution policy?

[echoridge] 26/4/2019 12:36

here's my contribution to cutting and pasting.
This RNS single-handedly blows away pretty much all of history's favourite history 'lessons'. Read it (not you, history, you wait for your therapist to read it to you) carefully and you can see the future, specifically the next 6-8 months of amped up capX spending by the group, yet at the same time, an increase in prospective cash flow into SLE's coffers.

Eroton Successful Refinancing
08 January 2019

Eroton Successfully Refinances OML 18 Reserves Based Lending Facility (“RBL”)

San Leon Energy plc, the AIM-listed company focused on oil and gas development and appraisal in Africa, is pleased to provide an update with regards to the OML 18 reserves-based lending (“RBL”) facility held by Eroton Exploration and Production Company Limited (“Eroton”;), the operator of OML 18.

The Company first highlighted on 7 September 2017, and subsequently since, that depositing three future quarterly RBL repayments into a specified Debt Service Reserve Account (“DSRA”) was one of the conditions needing to be satisfied before the RBL lenders would allow a distribution of dividends from Eroton to its shareholders (of which the Company is an indirect shareholder).

The Company has now been informed by Eroton that the RBL has been successfully refinanced. With a final repayment of $398 million, the RBL has been repaid in full and replaced by a new reservesbased lending facility with Guarantee Trust Bank (the “GT Bank RBL”) for the same principal amount, with the following notable advantages:

The original RBL had a repayment date in mid-2021, while the GT Bank RBL has a late-2025 repayment date, consequently reducing quarterly repayments and freeing cashflow (in excess of $80 million per year until mid-2021) for further drilling and development.
The DSRA requirement under the GT Bank RBL is reduced to two future quarterly repayments which combined with the lower quarterly repayment amounts means that only approximately $50 million is required in the DSRA compared with more than $100 million previously.
The refinanced interest rate is marginally higher at approximately 11% (versus 10% previously).

Oisin Fanning, CEO of San Leon, commented:
“I am delighted with the terms secured by Eroton for the RBL restructuring, and the impact which Eroton expects this to have, both unlocking substantial additional funds for operational activity, as well as lowering the DSRA hurdle to Eroton paying dividends to its shareholders

[alaric7] 26/4/2019 12:08

It's always good to be underestimated - you didn't know that, echoridge? People love him. And you know what, he has been very successful, well OK maybe that was a long time ago or maybe even never. You see money's not his thing really, not even as away of keeping the score. But everybody loves him. Here's the thing - he has a great relationship with the Mexican people, because he thinks about the small stuff and the little things. And he will apologise in the distant future if he were ever wrong but you have to BE WRONG to apologise but he's the historyman, so he isn't ever wrong is he? [with apologies to President Trump for any unintended similarities, which are entirely coincidental]

[echoridge] 26/4/2019 08:10

Am I the only one who thinks of Donald Trump when this cut-and-paste muppet calls someone - anyone - 'stupid'? Too mired in bitterness to acknowledge the company's progress and yet too feeble-minded to understand that he's an object of pity.

[divmad] 25/4/2019 19:52

Judging by the number of times you post on here every day, history man, I am thinking you must be unemployed. Right?