CSGguy, just a quick reply but will try and come back to this later - the 28 November presentation mentioning first oil in 2015 can be found here: http://elkpet.com/investor-centre/presentations/
I found this presentation interesting as it was dated only 7 days after a presentation mentioning first oil in March 2017.
The massive variable in all of this clearly is the rate of re-pressurisation and it is unclear what Denbury/ELK are planning in that regard.
The big questions for me revolve around the financing that MEL need to attain before March; primarily the scale of this finance and its purpose.
ELK's last quarterly shows 1.6 million cash with a planned spend of 500k for the quarter just ended. So as of today they should have 1.1 million in the bank. With MEL's 2.5 million this gives approximately 3.6 million. Enough to repay the 1.25 million on 8 January and leaving approximately 2.35 million for 'other', perhaps the 1.9 million of 2015 JV costs and sufficient cash for the ELK component of administrative costs in a consolidated entity. On the surface that just leaves the over-run from 62.8 to 70 million. Denbury may well be the buyer of the pipeline, and in that case this may well offset this amount (pure speculation, clearly). All in all I'd say that 2015 expenditure could be accounted for.
So, what is the financing for? My money would be on the Singleton project, as that appears to have potential for early monetisation. However, I have no idea of the costs on that front. Singleton appears to have much higher pressures in general than Grieve, which should go a long way to making it more cost effective and an early producer. A spanner in the works is that the CO2 contract starts in late 2016 from memory, so unless this can be brought forward it would appear, from my limited understanding of the EOR process, redundant for MEL to secure finance at this early point. The only other options that I can see are:
1 - another project
2- financing to cover JV costs
3 - extra cash to accelerate water and CO2 injection at Grieve (unlikely due to Denbury cut backs)
It's all getting a bit circular - but I would really like to know whether we are looking at financing of half a million or 50 million, in what form (debt, cap raise, placement?), and for what purpose. That is information that is needed for us, as shareholders, to make an informed decision.
MEL Price at posting:
4.5¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
