Touchstone Exploration Share Discussion Threads

[crooky1967] 01/8/2018 15:56

I'll accept CND $6.00 a share minimum.

[2prsimo] 01/8/2018 15:21

That's a very encouraging and exciting piece MT - thanks for posting - I guess that could well be the end-game here if a sizeable discovery/discoveries is made at Ortoire.

[someuwin] 01/8/2018 14:38

...Amazing.

[mount teide] 01/8/2018 14:35

The recommended takeover offer announcement made by BG Group(since taken-over by Royal Dutch Shell) in 2004 for the small Canadian exploration and production company that hit the big time with its 65% interest in T&T's Central Block Field after it made the Carapal Ridge gas field discovery.


'BG Group announces today that it intends to make a recommended take-over offer of Canadian $5.10 per share for all of the shares in Aventura Energy Inc., through its wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary, BG Canada Ltd.

The total purchase price to be paid by BG Group is approximately Canadian $228 million (US$171 million).

Aventura is an exploration and production company with a 65% participating interest in, and operatorship of, the 111 square kilometre, onshore Central Block exploration licence in south Trinidad. Petrotrin, the state-owned hydrocarbon company, holds the remaining 35%.

The estimated proved and probable reserves in the licence are approximately 0.5 trillion cubic feet. Martin Houston, Executive Vice President, BG North America, Caribbean and Global LNG, said "Trinidad and Tobago is of core importance for BG Group, and this acquisition further strengthens and complements our existing business in the country."

"Through BG's involvement in all aspects of the LNG chain, we are ideally placed to realise synergies not readily accessible to others. Aside from the discovered reserves, the key factors in our evaluation of the asset are the considerable exploration potential and anticipated LOW CAPITAL AND OPERATING COSTS, given the asset's onshore location and proximity to the new Cross Island Pipeline."

Aventura's shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and approximately 72% is owned by the Vermilion Energy Trust, through its subsidiary Vermilion Resources Ltd. The Board of Directors of Aventura unanimously intends to recommend BG Group's takeover bid.

In addition, Vermilion and the Directors of Aventura have irrevocably agreed to accept the offer, and consequently BG now has commitments to accept the offer from the holders of approximately 74% of the outstanding shares of Aventura.

In 2000, Carapal Ridge, a structure within the Central Block, became the largest onshore discovery made in Trinidad and Tobago in the last 40 years when it tested at 62 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) and 1,625 barrels of condensate per day (bcpd). The discovery well is on an extended production test with approximately 20 mmscfd and about 500 bcpd being sold to Petrotrin.

Gas is transported via a 12km 10-inch pipeline that connects to NGC's network. Other discoveries in the Central Block include the Corosan-1 well, which, in late-2001, tested at 8.2 mmscfd, and the Baraka-1 well, which, in July 2003, tested at 22 mmscfd and 660 bcpd. '


Each of TXP's 5 prospects (3 Gas + 2 Oil) on their adjacent Ortoire Block is targeting potentially very large reserves described by management as 'Carapal Ridge Plus' in size: which in the event of success would be "transformational for the Company and T&T".

[lord gnome] 01/8/2018 11:15

It is a buy. There will be an inevitable bit of churning / profit taking at any significant price level and in the context of TXP, 20p is significant. The widely anticipated next trading update should have the desired effect of pulling us up and away from 20p if it is anywhere near as good as we all hope. 2,000 bopd should do it.

[novicetrade68] 01/8/2018 10:36

If the 100k @20.20p is from this morning then it's probably a buy.

[mount teide] 01/8/2018 10:21

Is A Supply Crunch In Oil Markets Inevitable? Nick Cunningham/OilPrice.com today


'The oil industry is more profitable than at any time in years, yet the industry could fail to supply enough oil to meet global demand in just a few years’ time.

A series of second quarter earnings reports over the past two weeks has revealed surging profits across the oil industry, with some companies posting earnings that are double or triple from a year earlier. But even though they are flush with cash, the industry has not returned to the profligate spending levels that were common prior to the 2014 market downturn.

Depending on one’s perspective, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. According to Carbon Tracker, the oil industry has trillions of dollars of projects in the pipeline that will become financial risks as governments around the world seek to address climate change. In essence, lots of oil and gas reserves will remain in the ground due to forthcoming taxes, regulation or simply demand destruction as alternatives take hold. Against this backdrop, a shortfall in spending is not such a bad thing.

On the other hand, energy agencies and forecasters, such as the International Energy Agency, have warned that the current pace of spending by the global oil industry is insufficient.

The downturn that began in 2014 led to a severe cutback in spending on exploration and development. Spending plunged by 25 percent in 2015, followed by another 26 percent decline in 2016. Since then upstream expenditures have bottomed out, rebounding 4 percent last year. The industry is only track to increase spending by another modest 5 percent in 2018. But there is little sign that the industry will return to spending at the same rate that it did prior to the downturn.

Lower spending has translated into a steep drop off in new discoveries. In 2014, the industry discovered an average of about 1,350 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) every month. In 2015, that average ticked up to 1,404 mboe per month, according to Rystad Energy. But that figure fell off of a cliff in 2016, crashing to just 697 mboe/month, and fell again to 625 mboe/month last year.

New discoveries are set to rebound to 826 mboe/month in 2018 as drilling activity rebounds, Rystad Energy says, up 30 percent compared to last year. ExxonMobil’s three discoveries in Guyana represent a big slice of that total.

But the discoveries are still a fraction of what they used to be, back when the oil industry was spending much more. According to Rystad Energy, the oil industry needs to add around 33 billion barrels of oil every year, but the industry is on track to only add 20 billion barrels in 2018.

“An uptick of 30% from the abnormally low levels in 2017 might seem encouraging, but E&P players are currently facing a low reserve replacement ratio, on average of less than 10%. This is worrisome considering the impact on global oil supply in long term,” Espen Erlingsen, Head of Upstream Research at Rystad Energy, said in a statement.

As that pipeline begins to dry up over the next few years, a supply gap could emerge. “The years of underinvestment are setting the scene for a supply crunch,” Virendra Chauhan, an oil industry analyst at consultancy Energy Aspects, told the Wall Street Journal.

Of particular concern is the rate of depletion at conventional fields. “After more than three years of E&P underinvestment, the international production base has started to show accelerating signs of weakness with noticeable year-over-year production declines in 15 of the world's producing countries,” Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard told analysts on an earnings call. “These developments underline the growing need for increased E&P spending in particular in the international markets as it is becoming apparent that the new projects coming online over the next few years will likely not be sufficient to meet the increasing demand.” The average decline rate climbed from 3 percent in 2014 to 6.3 percent in 2016, although it improved to 5.7 percent in 2017.

U.S. shale production is expected to slow over the next year, but then accelerate once again after several Permian pipelines come online in late 2019 and early 2020. The Permian will be one of the largest sources of supply growth in the medium-term. But most analysts expect shale output to plateau in the 2020s before entering decline. The lack of new large-scale projects scheduled to come online in the early 2020s raises the risk of a supply crunch.'

[brasso3] 31/7/2018 21:14

Good post from Fatcatz on LSE:-

Issued a quarterly update today and a couple of things stood out to me. I look forward to comparing with our peers in Trinidad when they issued their updates.

Average production of 663 bopd at $12 netback = $2.9m per annum and they have a mcap of GBP £9.0m
I am expecting our average for the quarter to come in at around 1850 bopd with a netback of USD $30 = $20m per annum, almost 10 times RRL.

Another point I found of interest "Active marketing campaign underway to secure further third-party drilling work during the current quarter". This could mean there is not a lot of drilling going on in Trinidad which would keep the cost of drilling new wells low. Good news for our drilling campaign next year.

[brasso3] 31/7/2018 21:06

I can see 8 x 250k trades for the day!

[captainfatcat] 31/7/2018 17:58

Four late trades now showing 250,000 each

[junky monkey] 31/7/2018 14:14

I wonder if it isn't our friends at North Energy who are on the buy here lately.

They have been buying up more of another company they own a sizable chunk of - Reach Subsea. They have some cash available, couple million GBP I think it is.


North Energy is supposed to get a refund from the Norwegian goverment after closing down it's petroleum activity in Norway. Some speculate it will come in August, others speculate November which are the normal times for tax refunds in Norway. It was applied for end of 2017.

The size of the tax refund is on the order of 20 million GBP +.

Now, what are they going to do with all that cash?

[rafieh] 31/7/2018 13:52

Some relatively larger sells being gobbled up by a willing buyer. RNS will fuel the rocket soon.

[mount teide] 31/7/2018 08:29

L2: 4 v 1 / 20.0p v 21.0p - (1 mm @ 21.6p, 3 @ 22.0p)

[deltrotter] 31/7/2018 08:02

Level 2 strengthening from the off. Let's see a clear break of 20...

[mount teide] 31/7/2018 07:56

Latest oil market report from Natural Resource Market Analysts and Investors Goehring & Rozencwajg - well worth a read.


Beware The Collapse In NON-OPEC Oil Supply - Goehring & Rozencwajg
Natural Resource Market Commentary Newsletter




Conventional Oil: The Problem No One is Talking About

'The collapse in global discoveries of conventional oil is not new to us. It has been impressive and has received only passing comment by the financial press. In 2017 alone, the global oil industry discovered only four billion barrels while global consumption exceeded 35bn barrels, leaving an impressive 30bn barrel gap between discoveries and demand. Over the last five years,the numbers have been equally imbalanced. Since 2012, we estimate global oil consumption exceeded new conventional oil discoveries by a total of 210bn barrels.

To show how deeply embedded these trends are, the last time conventional oil discoveries exceeded global consumption was 18 years ago when discoveries (37 billion barrels) exceeded consumption (28 billion barrels) by 9 bn barrels......

.....Anemic upstream capital spending trends almost guarantee that this dismal stretch of conventional oil discoveries will be repeated in the next five years.

For example, according to Rystad Energy,the Norwegian oil and gas consulting firm, the global oil and gas industry will spend only $440 bn in the 2015-2020 period, nearly 50% below the $875 billion the industry spent between 2010 and 2015. Although energy investors pay little attention to these large drops in capital spending, significant long-lasting effects have already appeared and are now firmly embedded in global oil markets. Not only have the discovery of new conventional oil reserves collapsed, but conventional non-OPEC oil production has already begun to quietly decline.........

.....We have reached a tipping point in this oil bull market. Since reaching the lows in the first quarter of 2016, oil prices have advanced almost three-fold, yet investors remain stubbornly bearish towards oil.

Surging US shale production and an entrenched belief that global oil demand will peak and markedly decline as we progress into the next decade have caused investors to ignore the positive fundamentals in global oil markets over the last 18 months.

Although oil-related investments have recently started to perform better, they continue to lag the oil price advance. We believe last month’s OPEC meeting might prove to be the catalyst to finally change investors’ perception.

Consensus opinion held that any OPEC deal to increase production would cause a near-collapse in prices as a new market-share war (with Russia now thrown in) would break out. Reflecting generally accepted consensus opinion, a Bloomberg headline shouted: “Coming Soon: ‘OPEC’s Worst Meeting Ever, Part 2.’

The Saudi about-face on production lays the ground for discord in Vienna.” But a funny thing happened after the June OPEC meeting concluded: even though a pact increasing oil production was agreed to, prices rallied with West Texas Intermediate(WTI)making a new high.

We believe the bull market in oil, (ignored thus far every step of the way by the investment community)is set to dramatically accelerate to the upside.

Stay long oil and oil related investments.'

[mount teide] 30/7/2018 20:58

A subscription Wood Mackenzie LNG study has forecast at least a 6 fold increase in LNG Imports across the Caribbean and Central America over the next decade.

T&T's world class 15 million tonne per annum LNG export terminal is perfectly placed to competitively service some of this massive forecast increase in regional demand.


How much LNG could be marketed in the Caribbean and Central America? - Wood Mack

Executive Summary

'In recent years, the region has caught the attention of important players, and some of the notable developments include Gas Natural Fenosa's deal in Puerto Rico, Shell's LNG SPA for the under-construction regas facility in El Salvador, and the AES-Engie joint venture for LNG marketing using AES' Dominican Republic and Panama hubs. In addition, the unique logistical challenges have led some — like newcomer New Fortress Energy — to develop innovative solutions that make investing in the region more attractive.

The region's potential is underpinned by its current reliance on oil for baseload power generation and the opportunities this creates in conversion to gas and new LNG gas-to-power projects. Excluding Colombia, which has a hydro-reliant system, fuel oil and diesel power plants make up 54% of installed capacity.




Our main findings are the following:

In 10 years, LNG demand will grow six-fold from 2 mmtpa to 12+ mmtpa

Growth is driven by the potential of LNG gas-to-power – both conversions and new plants

There are plenty of opportunities for marketing as less than 20% of projected LNG demand has been contracted

LNG import facilities expected online in the next seven years will add 2.4 bcf of regas capacity.

The markets included in our analysis are the following: Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador and Curaçao.'

[mount teide] 30/7/2018 19:40

del - 'Someone is picking up a lot of stock here'

"not guilty your honour"


Japan, the world's largest consumer of LNG has just completed the construction of a new LNG terminal (Ichthys), capable of handling and storing two thirds the annual throughput of Trinidad and Tobago's world class Point Fortin LNG terminal- which has been expanded five fold since the first LNG Production Train was constructed in 2002.

The cost of the new Japanese LNG terminal? Try $40bn!

Having natural gas prospects with potentially very large reserves close to an LNG export terminal, capable of handling the latest generation of LNG Carriers(which at $250m-$300m each cost 4 times that of a VLCC/Very Large Crude Carrier), could in the fast growing global LNG industry prove to be extremely lucrative should these "low risk" exploration targets prove even modestly successful.


AIMHO/DYOR

[brasso3] 30/7/2018 18:17

All of the larger trades (50k+) appear to be buys. :)

[deltrotter] 30/7/2018 17:15

Someone is picking up a lot of stock here MT.

[mount teide] 30/7/2018 17:13

871,000 transaction volume for the day - always encouraging to see a strong break out supported by nearly double the average daily volume over a previous weekly, monthly, 3 monthly and annual basis.

[lord gnome] 30/7/2018 13:32

Thanks MT. I used to have L2 but gave it up a couple of years ago. It was of no use to me for the large cap dividend stocks that make up the bulk of my holdings, but it is very useful down amongst the small cap stocks

[mount teide] 30/7/2018 13:20

LG - looks like broker STFL (Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited) may have managed to pick up some stock.

L2: 1 v 1 / 19.7p v 20.6p (3 on 21.0p and 1 on 21.2p)

[zengas] 30/7/2018 13:17

It is very conservative MT and imo could be possible for a triple figure share price with average success.

TXP has around 15 mmbls P2 on 3,049 net acres after last March 2018 P2 reserves increase. They are still drilling those properties and likely to increase reserves further.

From the T&T presentation in January 2018.
3 of TXPs main producing assets -
Coora Blocks 1&2 combined = 1,699 net acres = 4.4 mmbo P2.
WD-4 block = 700 net acres = 3.8 mmbo P2.
WD-8 block = 650 net acres = 4.4 mmbo P2.

Total = 12.6 mmbo P2 on 3,049 net acres out of a total 15.698 mmbo P2 including the minor properties. Then came the March 2018 P2 reserves update which increased the reserves on those properties by a further 18% net and after production.

The Ortoire block is 35,785 net acres. It's got world class potential because it has at least 4 existing discoveries - has structural traps, stratigraphic traps, turbidite deposits and both shallow and deep potential and you can see the amount of reserves/acres from just some of the formations and pay attributed to Coora and WD blocks.

There is over 200 mmboe recoverable reserves found on 3 sides, just outside of the block boundary in 4 accumulations that would cover only a sixth of the Ortoire block.

[lord gnome] 30/7/2018 13:15

No shortage of stock now they've moved up the price. Just had an online quote to buy 50k at 20.45 and 100k at 20.6