Volga Gas Share Discussion Threads

[swiss tony] 29/6/2010 14:47

Very interesting, the last time the spread was so small this made huge leaps upwards, £2 to around £2.75 in 2/3 days if I remember rightly. Be interesting to see if this holds true again...

[roscoepeeco] 17/6/2010 16:05

If you like cash shells with lots of potential to multibag, take a look at DXR there's an interesting next 2 weeks to come,rto and all that,it's a good honest thread with ADVFN holders amounting to approx 23%,major holders who contribute to thread CPS1959 (Colin Peter Szwed 6% holding)kennyruss (Kenny Russell over 4%)and Tigerdog (Nicholas Mayer 3%) well worth a look guys n gals and GL.....

[tradermel] 17/6/2010 15:56

I'm watching these with great interest. A largly ignored company with great potential. Been in and out since £0.60 and last in stop lossed out at £1.95 (grrrr) and I thought I'd lost my chance at getting in at a better price when GF1 came in not so good.

Going to have to revisit my research again as these are worth serious consideration.

[anusol] 16/6/2010 17:02

Premature Tony?

[swiss tony] 16/6/2010 09:49

and again at £2.17, loverly, thanks MMs....

[swiss tony] 14/6/2010 15:41

I just topped up today, sold most at £2.97, so happy enough!

[o1lman] 11/5/2010 10:30

Volga Gas Investors Await News Of Deep Sub-Salt Well Tests As The Company Lines Up Another Supra-Salt Prospect


After a mammoth drill job, Volga Gas has completed the Grafovskaya-1 sub-salt well on the Karpenskiy Licence Area in European Russia. This was a key drill for the AIM-quoted company, which IPO-ed in 2007 for precisely this reason: to explore the deep sub-salt structures on the Karpenskiy licence.
There are two main sub-salt prospect areas in the KLA: Yuzhny-Ershovskoye and Yuzhny-Mokrousovskoye. The Grafovskaya-1 well, which spudded at the end of August 2009, was drilled into the Yuzhny-Ershovskoye structure to a depth of 5,379 metres, hunting for a possible company-making resource of 400 million barrels of oil equivalent.

In the first target zone, a dolomitised Permian-aged carbonate formation at depths of 4,000 to 4,300 metres, the well encountered a 300 metre column with shows of light oil and carbonate. Logging, coring and initial open-hole tests indicated substantial pay thickness with low estimated permeability so the company will need to undertake further tests to work out whether the reservoir is capable of producing at commercial rates. This will include acid treatment and/or acid hydrofracturing to potentially improve flow rates.

The well then drilled through a 600 metre shale sequence before entering a second carbonate sequence at 5,000-5,070 metres. Gas shows were encountered in this section before the well drilled deeper into a Devonian carbonate layer. Mechanical problems in the deeper interval made it difficult to undertake wireline and logging so casing is being set down to target depth to enable testing of the intervals in the coming months.

A lower cost workover rig will be brought in to undertake the testing work, which will start in the deeper horizons and then work up to the shallowest. These tests will be key for Volga as they will determine the commercial potential of this expensive well. For now the company is taking encouragement where it can, pleased to have successfully drilled this deep and challenging well on time and within budget, not to mention encountering what it calls "significant hydrocarbon shows". Investors will be keen for regular updates from this testing programme to get a handle on the scale and, importantly, the commercial deliverability of this low permeability reservoir.

The company is busy elsewhere in the KLA, which is also home to a number of supra-salt prospects. Although these shallower targets are not on the same scale as the sub-salt structures, they do offer a passport to relatively low cost and fast-track production. It already has one in production: the Uzenskaya oilfield, which last year produced an average of 1,267 barrels per day. This enabled the company to post positive EBITDA and operating cash flows in its 2009 full year results, a significant milestone for a young company and one which should set it on a sustainable footing for further growth.

While the Uzenskaya field is, in the company's own words, of modest scale, it is also very profitable. It was developed at a cost of US$1.91 per barrel of C1 reserves and benefits from very low production costs, an average of US$0.71 per barrel last year. During 2009 the average sales price was US$25.23 per barrel and after paying Russia's Mineral Extraction Tax, gross profitability averaged US$14.52 per barrel. This is where Volga's strategy to focus on the European side of Russia starts to pay off: this is an area where project economics aren't derailed by astronomical transportation costs because all of Volga's assets sit close to existing infrastructure and energy-hungry markets. What's more, these shallow wells are reasonably cheap to drill, between US$1 and US$2 million.

The company has recently identified a new addition to its supra-salt inventory, with the Novaya prospect carrying a C3 resource estimate of 153 million barrels of recoverable oil and 204 billion cubic feet of gas (187 million barrels of oil equivalent). Novaya lies in the Yuzhny Mokrousovskoye prospect area in the northern part of the KLA, about 30 km west of the Yuzhny Ershovskoye prospect where Grafovskaya-1 has finished drilling. Volga hopes to drill this well in 2011 at a cost of around US$2 million.

The company also holds the VM gas-condensate field, which has C1/C2 reserves of 54 million barrels of oil equivalent. Two production wells are ready to go, with expected combined output of 12 million cubic feet per day although the company believes the wells could produce at about twice that level, with further wells taking the field's plateau production to between 30 and 35 million cf/d.

Here, however, Volga has run into the kind of problems that have blighted so many investment ventures in Russia. In 2008 the company's legal title to the field was challenged by a shareholder of Trans Nafta, the company which sold Volga the field prior to its IPO. The challenge was later withdrawn as Volga and Trans Nafta agreed to form a gas processing venture to be 75 per cent owned by Volga. The Gas Processing Unit, still under construction, on the Dobrinskoye field, five kilometres from VM, is to be the main asset of the JV. Under the terms of the JV, Volga made a pre-payment of US$22 million at the end of 2008.

There are still some commercial issues that need to be settled, however, before this matter can be put to bed: The company had hoped to bring VM onstream by the end of Q1 2010, rather later than the initial timeline of first gas by the end of 2008, but even that adjusted timeline has been missed. It now looks like the GPU won't be operational until next year as before the GPU can become fully operational a sulphur treatment unit needs to be transferred: given the required approval permits that will be required, this process is expected to take up to nine months. Even so, Volga is hopeful that VM might make some meaningful contribution to the books in 2010, with plans for a possible long-term production test, which would generate some revenue and provide additional information about the field's productive capacity.

Oilbarrel

[anusol] 07/5/2010 17:01

wonder if we're going to stop at 200p? Fill yer boots if it goes lower - no urgency though, so give markets a few weeks/months to steady themselves.... sell in May etc.

[swiss tony] 06/5/2010 17:22

Here's your chance Yorgi!!!!

[yorgi] 04/5/2010 14:49

Not yet thinking about it....totaly new to me....so will have a look later....if you have any pointers for reports or any useful info it will be appreciated Tony

[swiss tony] 04/5/2010 14:44

Yorgi, nice one, you in? Or thinking about it?

[yorgi] 04/5/2010 13:15

Well you attracted my attention Tony :-)(at XEL)

[o1lman] 29/4/2010 12:03

Mixed news from Graf 1, oil in place but needs to be fracced to see if it will flow.

Mikhail Ivanov, Chief Executive of Volga Gas commented:
"We are pleased to have completed the drilling operations on the G1 well and to
have done so within the original 250 day time estimate and within budgeted cost.
It is encouraging to have found significant hydrocarbon shows and we look
forward to the evaluation of the potential reservoirs."

[swiss tony] 29/4/2010 09:36

Seriously low volume, wait 'til everyone wakes up.....

[anusol] 29/4/2010 09:08

think good news was heavily priced into the recent rise - maybe expectations were higher than this? Might see a retrace back to 250p. Still great long term potential here.

[asif1230] 29/4/2010 08:19

no movement with such great news?

[wimbled] 29/4/2010 07:42

Wow - upwards and onwards

[saucepan] 29/4/2010 07:15

Great announcement this morning: Karpenskiy Licence Area

I think that will help the uptrend to resume

[swiss tony] 28/4/2010 10:46

Knew when writing that last post I was tempting fate...

[swiss tony] 27/4/2010 10:46

It's strange isn't it....
I think the fact that this board (and therefore the company) is so quiet that things like resistance don't really happen. It's like a blind share or something.
If there were lots of people trading this share, £3 would have been a bit of a problem, but Volga doesnt seem to want to play that game.
Not that I'm complaining...

[saucepan] 23/4/2010 14:14

Hard to believe that this is such a quiet board, but I prefer it that way

Moving well; but I agree, Swiss Tony, it will be interesting to see if 300p is taken out easily now we are there or thereabouts.

[swiss tony] 21/4/2010 10:11

I think there might be a little resistance at £3, but if it goes through that, then £3.50 will come round fast IMHO.

[saucepan] 20/4/2010 17:23

Great looking chart, IMHO. While I am in for the long haul, it looks as if 350p for starters can be achieved PDQ. In 2008, the share price moved down from 500p to current levels in less than a quarter. I see no reason why the share price cannot recover just as quickly once further momentum gets underway and the April high is taken out.

[swiss tony] 20/4/2010 13:09

At least IAE held the excitement when VGAS was quiet. Nice to have both in my portfolio though, it's all about balance, haha....