I worked on the project team that delivered Ghana's first FPSO...

I worked on the project team that delivered Ghana's first FPSO Jubilee in 2009 / 2010. As part of my job I had to deal with the senior executives from the project partners Tullow Oil / Anadarko / Kosmos etc. Any way at the time the Tullow exploration manager Angus I forget his last name had a theory that oil deposits were mirrored across continental plates when the continents seperated. So if you found an oil deposit in say offshore Ghana on the other side of the continental plate in South America there could be similar oil deposits with similar characteristics geology. They used to have a diagram explaining this where they showed South America and Africa joined together. Looks like Conjugate has copied this diagram or concept on their website off Tullow who used a very similar image to promote their mirroring exploration theory. It really has no basis for applicability to oil exploration in Uganda though. What is more important is the nearby discoveries along the lake rather than suggesting that this is a mirroring type exploration play.

Any way Tullow tested this by drilling the opposite side of the mirror from Jubilee Ghana in Guyana or French Guyana I think it was at the time and made another oil discovery with similar crude to Jubilee. From memory the name of the field started with a Z but this was more than 10 years ago now.

Tullow also happened to be the company that discovered oil in Uganda nearby to the Congujate blocks. I used to go drinking with some of the Tullow drillers in Ghana that had previously worked in Uganda and they told me there is oil all through there as well as in Kenya where Tullow have also made discoveries. The problem with it is that in that area of Uganda it is a seriously waxy crude which means it needs to be refined to send it via a pipeline via Kenya for export, either that or the pipeline needs to be heated to allow the crude to be pumped which is a major technical challenge. Any way the Uganda stuff turned out to be too big and complex for the likes of a small company like Tullow as operator to develop and the Uganda government wanted a big chunk of the project and were insisting that a big refinery be built impacting the project economics etc so they sold their share of the project off to Total and CNOOC and got some return but not the sort of return that would really be required for taking on the initial exploration risk in a country like Uganda. Basiaclly CNOOC / Total got a very good deal and the Ugandan government made Tullow pay a heap of taxes on exiting their investment that had to get settled through international courts from memory.

I reckon the chances of oil being present in the Congugate blocks is quite high it is just that like the Tullow discoverys it will be challenging to develop and suited to super oil major types used to working in Africa like Total or the Chinese that have the power to influence / use brown paper bag policy / diplomacy to get the outcomes needed with the governement of the day to move these types of projects forward. I can see this one being another Solgold type scenario where if they find something it will be beyond their ability to actually develop it and their best hope is to onsell on to the of the big boys next door. If I was to invest in this and I likely wouldn't based on the poor governance and share price performance of other companies related to NM and his cronies I would look to sell out on the news of any discovery / drilling results which would likely result in a multibagger and not get stuck in the orphan / major dilution period like Solgold is currently in. So many companies that make good discovereies are simply not capable of delivering major capital projects and the guys in charge of DGR and the related companies are no different.

Any way I bought a heap of Tullow shares with an average price above 10 quid while I was working in Ghana thankfully I got out at the 4 to 5 quid mark a few years later and invested the proceeds into Apple which remains my best ever investment, Tullow is now 30 odd p and I just write that experience off as another cr@ppy investment similar to my investments in DGR & Solgold.