As the largely meaningless warfare rages on between the various factions that exist on HC , that by and large are driven by the day to day shareprice not so much what the Company is actually trying to achieve, or already has achieved , it doesn't do any harm to look at the Companies progress towards the goal of becoming a long term producer / explorer...many Companies, and WPL stands as a good example, have gone through years of dilution to get a foothold in the industry, FAR's beginnings are certainly no different...you can dwell on the shareprice as it is now or dwell on what the shareprice might be when you sell, I prefer the latter as I'm not selling now, just the odd small top up...the only thing is I know what the shareprice is now..
FAR itself is a very interesting Company , it has gone where very few junior Oil exploring hopefulls have ever been and lived to tell the tale, quite frankly I'm amazed at what's been achieved to date when looking at the enormity of the task faced. There is not really a template for the Company or it's shareholders on how to go about this very high risk adventure and it's certainly never been something for the faint hearted..
Most major Companies started onshore , cheap drilling , plentifull oil and eventually ended up offshore as big conventional onshore discoveries dried up and they had the cash to do so.
Not FAR, it did this arse about face and STARTED with the most high risk and expensive form of oil drilling that exists, offshore and deep water, with very little cash , convinced COP and CNE to drill a couple of exploration wells, largely at their expense, almost got put out of business doing it and then got extremely lucky, with two large oil discoveries...SNE was FAR's saviour and now it's future, anything else is a largely a side show IMO.
That of course was the easy part, you either found commercial oil or headed to the knackers yard, it's converting that luck into income when you have none yourself when the fun really starts...they could have taken the easy path and sold out with a small gain and given the prize to others, but instead went for the big prize themselves which was several years and many dollars away...this is a Balsy Company in a high stakes game and required Balsy supporters.. It was always going to involve a number of CR's given the amount of front loaded costs involved, I think we are on number 5 since drilling started.
That spending to date has led to taking our 2C resources from Zero to 115 Mmbbls of quality oil , that unfortunately has a value best reflected at production not development, barring corporate activity...The cost has been with shares added to the register and it's been a hefty price, but certainly not unexpected..debt for the appraisal stage was never an option.
The decision to move forward into appraisal and beyond was the red flag, largely unnoticed, that said making easy money was never going to be a likely option for anyone holding shares.
Instead of sitting on their hands for the next 7 years Management have gone about activities related to trying help the funding process and potential prospects beyond Senegal, through exploration , to date with no success but also very little expense. Along the way we have met the usual corporate bullies and faced them down, as one should with bullies, we are yet to know the outcome of that but we will move forward regardless..We started the whole stampede of Oil Majors returning to the area and it would be nice to remain part of it...
For those worn down by the whole experience then remember there is still 3 years ahead before income starts, assuming we get there, so probably best to factor that in to your tolerance level going forward...I think time has been the hardest one to get to grips with, not just from a Company perspective but also a personal perspective, a lot can happen in seven years and has...I'll be 73 by the time first oil flows providing I'm not gracing a mantlepiece ..when this journey began I had considerably more energy and probably considerably less sense..such is life...
Have Management made mistakes along the way, almost certainly, they are no different than us, but for me there is nothing that stands out, when you swim amongst sharks you have to be seen as fearless.
They have continued their focus on the overall goal of turning this Company from a pure explorer with no income to a Company with a long term future...they have also raised the large amounts of cash required in very tough circumstances and that quite frankly is what this journey is all about untill it reaches its destination..everything else is largely about filling in time waiting , being a junior partner in a JV means you are largely along for the ride but they have certainly filled that waiting time in with other opportunities, with more to come...
I'm sure if most of us had looked seriously at the long term implications and the enormity of the task at hand , instead of getting caught up in the moment as one often does, we would have chosen something easier or waited, but that is our problem to deal with and the lessons can be applied to other opportunities...the Company is going exactly what it set out to do and the odds of achieving it are very high IMO...
On another note it will be interesting to see if Citicorp, our largest holder increased their stake to 19.9% with this raise, I'm half expecting a substantial shareholder notice...that might apply to other large holders as well but not FARJOY IMO, they did a lot of the early heavy lifting..
Cheers Whisky
(20min delay)