Not much new at the AGM.There was some heckling over...

Not much new at the AGM.

There was some heckling over board/management remuneration, with the option grants that were debated at last years AGM now appearing in the 2008 remuneration report.

PVE considered a Share Purchase Plan following the raising at $1.20, but a survey of those shareholders they had email addresses for suggested not many (7%) would take it up, so the costs in running an SPP seemed to make it impractical. The new institutional holders include some familiar names such as AMP and Telstra Super.

Regulatory delays were again a major topic. MM presented some graphics illustrating how the Italian regulatory process is supposed to work - it should be able to get from production application to final grant in 652 days, but it's taken over 1000 for Castello and Silaro. Production starts are now expected around September for Castello and January for Silaro.

The Bagnolo Mella storage application failed.

The lawsuit over the off-shore Azzura grant is from a small company whose application was rejected because they had no financial backing. So I expect PVE will let the Ministry fight that and not come to an arrangement as they did with Eddison over Ossola.

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Some thoughts of my own.

I think there's a good chance that no more capital raisings will be required now, and that the debt funding and the two production fields will provide ample cash flows to expedite further exploration and development. MM mentioned dividends in the informal chat after his presentation.

Obviously nothing is going to proceed as fast as we'd like, but the process while slow is not uncertain - this is nothing like biotech drug development or dealing with the FDA! There's been no active opposition (from e.g. environmental groups or local communities) yet to any PVE development. Given the conservative nature of Italian gas pricing - involving nine month trailing averages of standard oil/gas prices - the downside risk seems very limited.