What a week for Gatwick airport. First, Chris Grayling’s third Heathrow runway caper. Now, an even bigger competitive threat. And from a man every bit as plausible as the transport secretary: David Lenigas.
Yes, old Laughing Gas. Remember him? The champion of the Gatwick Gusher: the North Sea rival at Horse Hill, just down the road from the baggage carousel. Who can forget his famous turn in April 2015 on the taxpayer-funded BBC, trumpeting an oil find of “national significance”. Much more thrilling than a second Gatwick runway.
By an astonishing coincidence, Mr Lenigas and his sidekick Donald Strang were either running or involved in five quoted companies linked to the Gusher, whose shares duly took off. Spurtiest of the lot was UK Oil and Gas Investments: executive chairman Mr Lenigas, finance director Mr Strang.
Its shares shot up 176 per cent to 2.98p. And all helped by some prize spouting from chief executive Stephen Sanderson: “Based on what we’ve found here, we’re looking at between 50 and 100 billion barrels of oil in place in the ground.” Or twice as much, potentially, as extracted from the North Sea.
Of the trio, only Mr Sanderson remains at UKOG. But Mr Lenigas chairs Doriemus, another Gusher company, where last December he told investors to expect “significant cashflow” from the project “by early 2019”. And, as he proved yesterday, he’s as keen as ever on the prospects for the local Jurassic kimmeridge. “After too many years of waiting, I’m feeling optimistic that it’s time to test the greatest onshore oil discovery in UK history. About bloody time,” he tweeted.
So how, you ask, is the great oil project going? Well, as luck would have it, UKOG yesterday issued a “competent persons report on recoverable resources” — written by a person perhaps more competent than Mr Lenigas, some outfit called Xodus. And guess what? It’s found 21 million recoverable barrels in the whole UKOG portfolio, including its 32 per cent Horse Hill stake. So a bit shy, so far, of the 100 billion target.
It’s not nothing, even if there’s zip to date from the layer of rock crucial to turning the “greatest onshore oil discovery” from trickle to gusher. Xodus reckons the “kimmeridge assets are not yet at a sufficient level of definition where any meaningful reserves or resources can be assigned”. The shares? Down 3.5 per cent to 1½p.
Or, to put it another way, the nodding donkeys who followed Mr Lenigas down his Gusher at 3p have lost 54 per cent of their money — a familiar tale with most companies he promotes. Shares in Doriemus have also tanked.
True, Mr Lenigas may be proved right in the end, even if his oil finds do look a bit random. Last year, he alarmed the FA, claiming: “There is oil, well and truly under the M25, and probably all the way under Wembley stadium.” As for Gatwick airport? No obvious case yet for its redevelopment as an oilfield.
DOR Price at posting:
8.1¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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