Genel Energy, Rialto Energy, Cuadrilla, and Uranium, yes, Uranium

‹ Glorious Goodwood

WTI $107.78 +2.75, Brent $109.40 +74c, B/WTI Diff – $1.72 , Natural Gas $3.38 -6c

Good morning

A heap of earning figures over the last 48 hours and some disappointing ( Shell, Exxon) but some beat the whisper (Conoco, Chesapeake, Hess)

Oil Price

Good news on the economic front around the world has pushed the oil price up sharply since Wednesday, US manufacturing showed fastest growth in two years, the China Industrial index beat the forecasts and even the Euro factory numbers were good.

What wasn’t good was the ability of the Wall Street analytical brethren to forecast the crude oil inventory stats. The figure was a build of 431,000 bbls but the consensus from the Strasa muppets was for a draw of 2.1m bbls……………………..

Genel Energy

Genel had results on Wednesday which I wrote up at the time, I promised to follow up after the meeting which was really good, marred only by some of the most stupid and facile questions that I have ever heard, from people who should know better. I actually felt sorry for the board who were clearly, like some of us squirming at the incompetence, there was even and industry reptile in attendance who was worse than any analyst.

In the chart below I have had to ‘raise the bar’ i.e. move the bar to yet another recent high, it won’t be long before the shares go through the all-time high of around 1044p.

In my view these shares are still exceptional value despite the rise this year and I think that analysts in general are overlooking the profitability from the existing developments combined with the potential upside from the exploration portfolio. With Taq Taq and Tawke production increasing, and able to take advantage of the export pipeline soon to be completed, moving forward of Miran and Bina Bawi plus the development of the gas part of the portfolio will be ‘transformational’.

What must not be forgotten is that there is a high impact African exploration programme starting 4Q 2013 with a well due to spud in Morocco.

Rialto Energy

Interesting goings on at Rialto which is still on the Malcy black list after dreadful management over the last year or so. But…………………………things might just be changing as the spinners tell me that today’s appointment is the culmination of the clean sweep of the board necessary to win over potential investors.

So, today’s announcement is that Andrew Rose has been appointed as Interim CFO to work alongside Rob Shepherd who is MD, possibly interim himself! Now, I was beginning to think that Rialto may be worth a look at and Andrew Rose, alongside Rob could make an interesting team, both are people I have a lot of time for if they have anything to work with.

I think it would be good to see the guys and hear the presentation, after which it may be worth dipping ones toe in the water, got to come off the b list first though.

Great chart all the same…………….

Cuadrilla is drilling the Balcombe oil well this morning after being held up by protestors in West Sussex. Chief Executive Francis Egan has said that the community will not be disrupted once drilling began and won’t notice much activity unless they ‘want to walk down to the site to see it’. Chances of that, remote I would say.

But latest news is that that there is a ‘flash mob meditation’ going on so that’s alright then…………………..

Uranium

I am aware that uranium is not oil or gas but it is fuel and when I saw this piece by our Senior Geologist, Paul Renken I thought it would be useful to show you.

The spot uranium price has tipped down again—falling another US$2.00/lb to US$34.50. This is the steepest single drop since May and reflects the slow pace of re-start of the Japanese reactors, which has caused a build -up of fuel inventory in the country. We also note that Japan has abandoned its carbon targets—with CO2 emissions 39% higher than the period prior to the Fukushima incident when its reactor fleet was in normal operation. This puts its emission targets well out of reach for the foreseeable future, as expressed in the Kyoto protocol. It’s ironic that the host country of the Kyoto agreement can’t meet the goals expressed in the document. Was the USA right after all to avoid signing?

Two quickies on the IR front……….

Good luck to the new team at Vigo Communications where the team of Reilly, d’Ancona, McMahon, Simons and Ribbens are ready to rumble..Mmmmmm

And to the ‘dream team’ at Tulchan who have won the Lamprell account I hear….

And finally…

The cricket is starting to get interesting and it should be exciting as Australia will want to get on as a draw doesn’t help them.

Can’t help agreeing with Geoffrey Boycott about the awful umpiring decisions given against both teams yesterday, at this rate the sides could agree to have an Aussie and an Englishman standing………………

David Warner came in and went out after scoring five runs which is about two more than the number of punches he got on Joe Root in a bar room in Birmingham.

The RBS has a new CEO in Ross McEwan who said that he will take his £1m a year salary but absolutely no bonus for this year or next but instead of a pension he is going to receive 35% of his salary in cash………….

To Dr Who where we have our own in-house expert in Andrew Monk who tells us that this weekend there will be an announcement of who is going to be the next, 12th and possibly last Doctor. He has said that he is going into hospital for routine surgery on his shoulder this afternoon but maybe, just maybe it’s going to be him….

I called it just right on the Zim elections but I cheated really as the results were known in advance I understand by anyone with access to the Presidente…

At Goodwood yesterday and great to see a few old friends, Richard Buxton tells me that his new job is very exciting, he started the very day after he left Schroders, Dickie Dale looked smart as ever and Marcus Ashworth, blogger supreme felt that he too could take the day off from the hard work of writing his gems.

Finally bad news for Steve Goalby, CFO at Alkane as Coventry City go into liquidation and will take a big points deduction, there are more points on Carlos Tevez driving licence than likely at the Ricoh next season, that’s assuming that they can afford to play there…

And St Johnstone got a great win in the Europa Cup qualifying tie, winning one nil at FC Minsk.