Something seemed very, very fishy with that 40% drop earlier. The RNS looked like it was written by a 5 year old, and seemed to deliberately overplay the things that went wrong rather than the many successes.

Unfortunately many small investors will have got shafted this morning, either through stop losses being triggered or selling because the RNS was very confusing. There was definitely a big II mopping up all the shares into that drop, other small investors have attested that it was impossible to buy during that point. Someone has though, and they have made a killing.

To understand the RNS you need to realise the fact that they are drilling in two distinct zones, the Upper (up to 5000 metres) and Lower Visean (5000m and below).

The prospective reserves report for both the POK and ZAG licenses are for the UPPER zone only. These are 51.7mmboe and 90mmboe respectively. It was thought that the lower zones may contain more gas/oil on top of these figures, but this wasn't certain.

So the RNS today states that they found gas in the UPPER POK well. They haven't released flow rates yet but this looks positive. So that 51.7 mmboe figure above is well on track. The LOWER zone in the POK well contained water however. So it has been plugged. Maybe a tad disappointing, but it was a bit pie in the sky to expect gas/oil further down as well.

As for ZAG, the same thing happened. The lower zone is non productive. They are still testing the upper zone, but the fact that they are carrying out additional work to the well suggests there is gas there as well.

So overall a positive set of results, poorly worded.

actually I have just reread the RNS and looked at some of the company presentations, and it is even more interesting.

The well V24/25 is actually in the lower visean zone. They have found gas here. The well V26 which is lower down in the lower visean was water.

So they have found gas in the upper visean - a prospective 51mmboe.
They also found gas in the upper part of the lower visean at V24/25 - could be any amount.

It looks like a similar case at the ZAG well as well. Very interesting.

Could I ask as you are an expert in this - am I correct in assuming that the higher the porosity of the rock the more potential for gas/oil in there?

What is interesting is that the lower visean has a porosity of 12%, and the upper visean 10%. (there's also the tournasian lower down with 16% porosity which they may target with other drills). So would I be correct in assuming that the lower visean may have more gas per square metre of rock than the upper visean because it is more porous? If we have a prospective 51mmboe in the upper visean do you see the possibility for 60% of that amount again in the lower zone because it is more porous (albeit the zone isn't as large)

Yes the oil or gas in place is the product of the gross rock volume times the porosity times (1- Sw) where Sw is the fraction of the pore space which contains water. If you are above the free water level then there is still some water in the pores if the rock is water-wet.

porosity also is related to permeability, which is a measure of how easily the fluids can pass through the rock. If the porosity gets too low (typically below 5 -10%) the low permeability may make it hard to get the gas or oil out.

Having an aquifer under the hydrocarbons may help in that it provides a drive mechanism to keep up the reservoir pressure and help recovery. However if the water encroaches to the well perforations it may kill off the well's production since water weighs more than hc. Most fields in the N Sea have water injection through dedicated wells which increases the overall recovery factor.

anyone got any thoughts on the latest developments?

well it seems like it is being done to enable to the CEO to get things moving more quickly with regards to farm outs (or outright sales of assets) and further acquisitions. At the moment, the process of having to get PIs to vote on anything being done is slightly farcical, because the fact is that only approx 10% of the shares are held by PIs. We have no bearing on anything because most of it is held by a few groups. As an example, that eni deal took 3 months to go through, once you announce a vote (60 day notice), then pass it.

The move to standard listing means they don't have to in act a vote on most things, they just go out and do it. Personally I trust the BoD to get things done, otherwise I wouldn't have been here in the first place. Also our ceo is one of the biggest shareholders (through his spqr fund) so I believe he will want to get the best deal for all shareholders. Clearly he is looking to prove up the assets and sell out, which is why he wants to speed up this process.

do you have any shares in HER jacqui? looks mighty impressive given all the high grades they are finding. patricia is worth about 4p/share as it stands, and will probably be worth double that when they update the mining inventory in q1 2012. plus there are 3 possible porphyry copper deposits they are targetting which could be huge. So 2.4p to buy is a bargain and I can't see how you can go wrong at this price.

There are a few others I have but her is my favourite I think.

looks very very undervalued. notice some big hitter that used to work for Eni has now joined the board, makes be think big things are on the way, as he wouldn't be messing about with a minnow otherwise imo. also two new guys have just taken a 10% in the company (looks like they are mates of the ceo). I'm expecting an operations update in april, so not long to wait for the price to go up substantially imo. this one looks like a relatively low risk share.

Agreed, Banwana. Interestingly, on iii posters are still claiming these RNS's are meant as tree shakers. At what point will investors admit the company is going nowhere fast? I hope it comes good for those still invested, but it could be a long road to break even for some.

Small jump for CAD today

what does today's rns mean?

18p i'm banking on not making 65 now

someone has sold 11455 shares and there down 9.88%.....i hope nobody sells 114550 shares

not checked these for a couple of months and i notice they have dipped under 15p today for a while and the trades page is full of sells might sell myself and buy a kitkat with whats left

UP 14.72% on Friday to 13.65p

ah well back from my travels, moved in my pad & back to work thought i check my mid numbingly disasterous investments
cad are plodding along still around the 13p mark

ffs it's gone up, that's unusual somethings wrong