Below are the relevant quotes for each of my bullets. The timestamped quotes are from the shareholder briefing announced in the ASX announcement on 2024-06-12. Several of these items have been discussed by Scott multiple times; below I've included the first ones I found. Hopefully this somewhat changes your mind as it took me quite some time to put this post together. Links to everything are included at the bottom of the post.
Regarding the first three bullets shown below:
- The plan was to raise enough funds to drill another well, flow test and shoot 3D seismic through a combination of the placement to sophisticated investors as well as the rights issue to existing shareholders.
- The rights issue failed, therefore, there were not enough funds to proceed with the planned work program
- As a result, Invictus needed to seek alternative financing routes and decided that a JV was needed to proceed with the work program because the company is no longer able to raise enough via the capital raises at a reasonable share price.
Below are the relevant quotes:
9:20 - "On that basis, given the rights issue wasn't filled, we have then had to, rather than being ultra aggressive in our timing of what we wanted to do, and what we had set out to do was 3D and a well test for Mukuyu-2, we had to really ensure that we were getting the best bang for our buck in terms of value and how we were spending the funds that we had raised."
24:00 - "Stepping back to where we were end of Mukuyu-2, once we had delivered the results that we promised, we, and not only us but all of our key advisors, brokers, and large shareholders, were of the opinion that we would be given the license by our shareholders to go and continue to self fund another portion of this project in the next phase of the appraisal and exploration. And in the background, we would be able to undertake the partnering process, which would be done without any pressure and with us getting on with our planned exploration and appraisal program. With the rights issue, it became abundantly clear that we now needed to, in terms of future funding, bring that in through a partner. So we have accelerated that partnering process and we were planning to do it during the course of this year but we brought it forward and the technical team has been very hard at work on prepping data rooms and getting material ready and getting people through there. So the farmout is advancing very well. We have interest from not only traditional E&P companies but also service companies and the regional banks."
- The JV is dependent upon the PPSA so we are waiting on the PPSA to be signed before we can get funding via the JV.
I'm sure there are better quotes for this one, but below is the first I found released in the same announcement as the failed rights issue:
News on 2024-03-13 title "Invictus Energy Corporate & Operational Update": "The PPSA will provide a stable and transparent legal and fiscal framework across the life ofthe Cabora Bassa Project and anticipated to deliver several additional large international parties with the necessary confidence to progress additional proposals on farm-in and alternative financing options for the Company."
- Therefore, once we get funding from the JV, we will embark on a continuous work program involving drilling at least 1 well, deepening and testing M-2, and shooting 3D seismic. This work program will last 18 to 24 months and will be funded via the JV farmout.
28:08 - "With the farmout, what we're trying to achieve is to ensure that the next 18 months to 2 years worth of work program is funded. That means that we won't be relying on the capital markets to source any more funding. There won't be any more dilutionary activity and it also takes the pressure off from constantly having to come to the market and having to rush programs and keep everyone entertained with activity because we will be able to lay out a multi-well campaign which will keep us very busy and also provide us with a lot of cost synergies and savings and keep a constant rate of activity rather than this kind of very stop/start activity that we've had over the last couple of years.
I also strongly recommend reading the news release on 2024-07-29 linked below. The second half of the news release outlines in detail the forward plan for the project and states that it's contingent on bringing in a partner for funding.
Link:
https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/ivz/60df0bae-7cd.pdf Below are the links to the rest of the news releases mentioned above:
News release announcing 2024-06-19 shareholder briefing:
https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/ivz/64e923d0-7da.pdfLink to youtube recording of the 2024-06-19 briefing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39QcTHqm_OkLink to 2024-03-13 news release (corporate and operational update):
https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/ivz/74a59164-580.pdfSo in short, my view is that everything is contingent on bringing in a partner and bringing in a partner is contingent on the PPSA being signed. I feel that Scott has communicated this clearly and at no point have I been confused about the forward plan. With that said, Scott and Invictus management have on a multitude of occasions implied or outright stated that the PPSA was about to be signed. I don't think anyone of sound mind would argue that hasn't occurred, but my above points were written with that in mind. I put the blame for the PPSA delays mostly on the government of Zimbabwe but would understand why other shareholders might put more blame on Invictus. To me, it's fairly obvious that the government has told Invictus it's about to be signed, Invictus then communicates this to shareholders, only to then have the government delay things further.
(20min delay)