We appear to be agreed that CTP does not have the money for exploration of Surprise East. Can we agree that CTP needs one of:
1. A major placement. The 15% rule would allow us to raise $17m by the placement of 48m shares at $0-35 each.
2. A capital raising (which would have the same basic characteristics as the placement) but would be a lot slower.
3. 50:50 a joint venture over surprise west and east combined.
If so, the incoming venturer would need to be asked to pay 50% of all relevant exploration and development expenditure on Surprise - say $10m for a 50% share - and pay half the value of the reserves and resources - say $20m - for a total of $30m (Cottee's figure from last year). The terms of the JV would need to require that the rest of the PL area (the greater Surprise area with it's 13 other prospects) be retained by CTP (with liberty to enter into similar JVs or Farm-ins over each - or the total - of those prospects.
4. A 100% sale of the entire PL, with both Surprises, Surprise deep, the 13 other prospects and all production infrastructure.
In that case the sale price would need to be $60M (2 x the JV figure) + say $20m for the 13 prospects and Surprise deep.
I favour No. 4. The total of $80m would give us the capital to:
(1) keep abreast of our obligations to STO and TOT for our share of the respective JVs over the Santos and Total areas;
(2) seismic the daylights out of the rest of EP 115 (and any of our other titles on which we are free to work) as a campaign to improve the potential to create a chequer board of JVs over the rest of that (those) title/s;
(3) push for the grant of title over the Wiso and the WA tenements in the Amadeus with the objective of then repeating the process formulated in point 2 for those titles; and
(4) continue the process of "left field" enhancements of CTP's business model.
Our management has the flair for more than a horizontal consolidation of the company's activities. The Dingo and Palm Valley acquisitions proved that. The scope for more such activities is there. I favour 2 targets: (a) a mini oil refinery in Alice Springs. That would provide an almost freight free source of product that would enable CTP to snatch the central Australian diesel market from the current suppliers who bring it in from Singapore; and (b) a wholesale petroleum distribution network (trucks tanks and similar) to capture the petroleum transport infrastructure market within a 500 km - or more - radius of Alice Springs. Both of those targets could be achieved with funds loaned by a joint venturer interested in getting the benefit of CTP's expertise and access to local product.
We won't be seeing $5 - $6 for our shares without the level of success implicit in that vision. These 4 objectives are the degree of achievement necessary to lift CTP into the $2 Bn + range of market cap. We won't even have a distant prospect of that until we get started on these wider missions.
We need money to do that.
Have we got the money? That is the burning question.
One of our forum contributors who is skilled in finance might share his of her expertise with us by running an independent eye over our cash burn. It should be possible to put the figures together from the QARs. How much did we have at last report - what do we spend per month - what have we got left - what did we spend on the last well - do we have enough to do the next well (Surprise East)?
Cheers.
CTP Price at posting:
37.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
