Evening All
Most jokes depend on their nearness to the truth, never better revealed than at today's FAR AGM.
The first came with MD Cath Norman's opening slide, a huge elephant trunk emerging from the waters off Senegal. It was clearly in homage to our own Whisky, but its subtext was obvious: You Hot Copper guys are having fun with this analogy, but guess what - we think it's true. The next few years, said Cath, were about "revealing more of the elephant - or elephants, I should say, that we think are there".
Shortly thereafter, she turned to a state-of-the-company slide containing the day's only mistake, the share price showing as 0.94 rather than 0.094. When an eagle-eyed shareholder pointed it out, Cath's retort was whipcrack quick: "That's next year's slide," she said to great laughter ... but also perhaps the thought that at the heart of the joke was a potential truth.
There were so many highlights - and one lowlight - in the meeting that it's hard to know where to start. How about this?
When asked whether Senegal was even on the radar of the $US100 million behemoth Conoco, Cath and Chairman Nic raffled the answer. "Put it this way, the Chief Executive told the guy running his Senegal operation that he could take the pick of the best COP people around the world. They started with a team of four; they now have 30." Later one of the geos told me COP had dragged in guys from the UK, Norway and elsewhere to join the Houston-based Senegal team.
Or how about this:
"All the joint venture partners agree we are only scratching the surface of what could be a wonderful hydrocarbon province." - Cath Norman.
Or even this:
When asked if FAR was considering selling down its Senegal holding to fund further operations, Chairman Nic Limb almost swallowed his tie. "The (appraisal) game is only just beginning and we would prefer not to dilute from here. In fact if more rights were to come up - and that's not out of the question - we are looking to take them ... of course that would need to be funded."
But perhaps my favourite, in relation to appraising SNE:
Cath: "There are a number of thinner sands we believe can contribute significantly to the net pay (and hence the 2C). The work is complex and ongoing. By the time we start drilling we expect to be looking at a much bigger field than the 330 million barrels booked to date, so watch this space."
Too bloody oath we will.
So there's a taste for you all. Your scribe has dogs to walk: More - much more - in a second take of copy this evening.
OOO
PS: The share price is another joke, and one the board and management is not finding funny. Based on hearing what was said, and reading the body language, forget any conspiracy theory about company activity designed to deliver cheap options: They are genuinely pissed off that the value is not being recognised. Again, more of this later.
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(20min delay)