A Virgin Trader

According to several media reports today, Tullow Oil plc (TLW), has now served documents to exercise its pre-emption rights over the assets of Heritage Oil (HOIL) in Ugandan oil fields jointly owned by the two companies.

Tullow had until midnight on Sunday 17th January 2010 to file papers on Heritage’s Ugandan assets, valued at  $1.35bn (£829m).

ENI, who Heritage had already agreed to sell the assets near Lake Albert to back in November were unavailable for comment, according to the Wall Street Journal. Another report said Tullow would match the price offered by ENI for the assets in the deal, although there was no guarantee it would go through. This is a major move by Tullow and would be the biggest deal in the history of the company.

ENI may still seek to block the intervention through the Ugandan government, which will have the final say on the deal.

So far Heritage Oil has declined to comment.

Tags: Heritage Oil, Tullow Oil

AIM listed oilfield-surveying specialist, Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping (OHM) has won a $1 million contract for seismic work off West Africa. The contract was awarded to its subsidiary company Rock Solid Images and is expected to start January 2010.

Although the news does not seem to have been picked up by its own website yet, OHM boss Richard Cooper has said “We are very pleased that we continue to attract a significant proportion of the seismic inversion and reservoir characterisation work available in West Africa,”

He went on to say that “with our comprehensive knowledge of the regional rock properties of these Upper Cretaceous reservoirs, as exampled by the Jubilee, Tweneboa, Odum and Sankofa discoveries off Ghana, and most recently, the Venus discovery off Sierra Leone, we have been able to produce controlled source electro-magnetic (CSEM) survey design parameters which will optimise charged reservoir detection in this prolific oil province.”

I have been watching OHM for a while and this new contract adds to a growing list of wins this year.

Virgin

Tags: Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping

It is confirmed, Heritage Oil [HOIL], the UK-listed exploration and production company is to sell its stake in two fields in Uganda’s Lake Albert Rift Basin, to energy giant ENI of Italy.

ENI are to acquire the 50% working interest Heritage holds in two blocks in the Albert Basin, Blocks 1 and 3A, which it shares with Tullow Oil. Under the deal, Heritage will pay a special dividend of between 75 pence and 100 pence per share to investors, according to the Heritage website.

The deal is worth $1.35 billion.

The company also confirm that as a result of entering into the letter of intent (LOI) with Eni, discussions with Genel Energy International Limited (“Genel”) in relation to the proposed acquisition of Genel have been terminated.  The deal is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2010. How this news will affect the share price, remains to be seen.

It is thought Heritage would use the proceeds from the Italian deal to further develop its assets in the Kurdish region of Iraq where the company has a 75% stake in the Miran block in Kurdistan.

The deal also means a windfall for Heritage CEO and founder Tony Buckingham, who holds around 33% of Heritage’s stock.

I bought into Heritage Oil early in the summer only to watch it slide for several months. Luckily I topped up on the way down, ever the optimist.

Virgin

Tags: ENI, Heritage Oil, HOIL

Heritage Oil [HOIL] has confirmed it has a cash position of US$222 million as of 30 September 09, “which covers ongoing work programmes and current plans for 2010 comfortably” according to a statement by the company today. The FTSE 250 oil and gas company also hinted that they hope to reach a formal agreement with Turkey’s Genel Energy on the proposed $6 billion merger before the end of the year. Heritage originally announced the planned merger back in June and had hoped to have the deal finalised by October.

Heritage Oil’s CEO, Tony Buckingham, said:

“Operationally, Heritage is about to embark on its busiest period ever with high-impact multi-well drilling programmes in Kurdistan and Uganda, providing the potential for a significant increase in oil volumes. The previous successful drilling campaign in Block 1, Uganda, has de-risked the prospects for the upcoming programme in Uganda significantly.”

Heritage’s output in Russia soared by 83% in the third quarter to 422 barrels of oil per day.

A note of caution however came from brokers Evolution Securities who commented that “There is nothing particularly new. All it highlights is a window of activity and although it may reignite interest in the story, any significant movement in share price will depend upon whether Heritage can sign the deal with Genel before Christmas”.

After watching the share price take a hammering recently on lack of news as well as delays in the Genal deal, due to leadership changes in Kurdistan, it’s good to hear any news from Heritage.

Virgin

Tags: Heritage Oil, HOIL

If you’re a beginner investing in the oil and gas sector like myself, take a look at the following videos.

The first is by Industrial 3D and shows the initial rig up procedure. It is brilliantly done. Well worth sitting through. No sound unfortunately.

The second has been put together by The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council (a US company) and is also nicely done. It gives a good basic visual explanation of how a well is constructed and operated.

Don’t be put off the very US targeted intro and the voiceover, the animation is very good. Definitely worth a watch.

http://www.bseec.org/flash/3drig/index.html

Virgin

Tags: Oil rigs

If you bought West China Cement (WCC) shares in the early part of this year and your still on board then it has been a profitable ride. WCC a small Chinese cement company that is listed on the AIM has seen a steady climb across the year on some very strong figures.

Back in January along with most other companies, its shares were bouncing along the bottom at 59.00p rising to around 480.00p in October. Now that is a good return by anyone’s standard. Add the recent news that West China Cement has submitted a listing application to Hong Kong’s stock exchange, aiming to raise more than HK$7 billion ($903 million) in 2010 (according to Reuters) then the news should get even better.

Recent large investors include AXA Investment Management who has added (Zhang Jimin’s) West China Cement to their emerging-markets talents fund.  The fund consists of a shortlist of 400 entrepreneurial companies (according to Asian Investor).

Virgin

Tags: WCC, West China Cement

Enegi Oil (LSE: ENEG), the Manchester-based exploration company, today said operations had restarted at its PaP#1-ST#3 well at Garden Hill South in Newfoundland. It said the well had an initial flow at between 580 to 600 barrels of oil per day plus associated gas on a 32/64th choke.

Chief executive, Alan Minty, said: “We are delighted that the well is now flowing, albeit on an interval basis. With the continued development programme that we are planning we believe that the well’s full potential will soon be realised.

The Enegi Oil CEO also said “In addition to developing Garden Hill South, we are continuing to implement our plans to de-risk and add value to the other assets in our portfolio. The coming months will be an exciting time for the company.”

Read into that what you will. Sounds promising?

Virgin

Tags: ENEG, Enegi Oil

Nostra Terra Oil & Gas (NTOG) the London-based oil and gas company has started the week on a sound footing after announcing the results of a reserves report on its Bloom property in the USA.

Its report outlines potential gross proved reserves of 2.26MMbbl (1.02MMbbl net) and 1,096MMcf gas potential gross proved reserves (494MMcf net). Terra Matt Lofgran – Chief Executive of Nostra Terra said “The results of the reserves report on the Bloom property more than double our current reserve base while providing a great opportunity for cash flow for the company. The increase in reserve base should also provide the company with a more diversified portfolio of production assets in the future.”

This little bit of news should hopefully make for an interesting day as investors late into the news begin jumping aboard and the market makers get up to their tricks (if such things are true?). The virgin opened the wallet for this a couple of weeks ago after watching it for quite a while. Although I see my holding as more of a long term investment, I do like to watch all the excitment. Time will tell if that was a good decision.

Virgin

Tags: Nostra Terra Oil and Gas, NTOG

After recent rumours that West China Cement [WCC] might be seeking a full listing on the London stock exchange, it seems they have decided instead to list it’s shares in Hong Kong and will review its AIM listing.

According to chairman Robbe Robertson (I thought he was guitarist with the now defunct ‘The Band’ – that brings back good memories.) West China Cement, based in China’s Shaanxi province, will be ‘better positioned and understood’ in Hong Kong than on the AIM.

Floated on AIM at 105p in back in 2006, WCC have done well, aside from a massive share price fall from 250p to 48p, due to problems with flooding.  With the all encompassing recession the price is now 476.50, at close on Friday.

As a virgin shareholder in WCC, (bought in July at 143.00p, then sold for a virgin profit in Aug before buying back in on falls in Sept) what does this relisting mean for us?

If you have any thoughts on this let me know.

Virgin

Tags: WCC, West China Cement

Share trading can hurt. India focused Hardy Oil & Gas took a bit of a beating yesterday on news that its drilling campaign in the region had got off to a dry start. The share price slipped 41% after it admitted that it was abandoning work at an exploratory oil well in the Krishna Godavari basin. The first D9 exploration in east India was dry and has been plugged and abandoned. The share price finished the day at 320.00p

Luckily for me Hardy Oil is just one of those many oil stocks I have been watching climb healthily over the summer as investors got excited over its four-well drilling programme, which has had a lot of very optimistic press.

The bulletin boards, as usual, are a mix of a little disillusionment and increased optimism for the longer term. The question is will it slip lower over the coming week or is it time to jump back in for the a rebound? Who knows?

For me hopes are elsewhere for now.

virgin

Tags: Hardy Oil and Gas