BP, and Falklands stocks

WTI $103.85 +1.81 ; Brent $108.97 +1.09 ; B/WTI Diff – $5.12 -56c; Natural Gas $3.54 -7c

Good morning

The US is still closed but wait, Goldman’s have said this closure won’t last long, somebody tell the President….Won’t be long, October 17 I think, before the fudget comes up for discussion and the debt ceiling is re-opened, why not stay closed until then as its only going to happen again, the stand-off that is. A critical two weeks you would think and markets have been rather too sanguine methinks…..

Oil Price

The oil price had a bit of a relief rally last night but apart from Netanyahu rant at Iran all the physical factors would indicate a fall in the price. Our trusty bunch of analysts on Wall Street predicted stock build of 2.2m barrels of crude oil and it was actually 5.5m, not bad huh? Various rumours surfaced about the delay to the 200,000 b/d Cushing pipeline but were later dismissed.

Worth checking out the article in the WSJ that points out that the USA is ‘poised to overtake Russia as largest oil and gas producer’.

BP

At long last some good news for BP as the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit set aside the claims administrators interpretation of the business economic loss framework agreed last year. In essence the fictitious or bogus claims for non-existent losses should come to an end and BP ‘s pay-outs will be reduced.

Falklands Consolidation

Having been out of the limelight for a long time the Falklands has re-emerged this morning with a ‘combination’ or in plain language the acquisition of Desire Petroleum by FOGL. In addition, Premier and Rockhopper are farming into licences PL 004a and PL 004c by funding an exploration well on each licence, Isobel and Jayne prospect stacks.

The acquisition values Desire at c18p per share and the combined entities will have cash of $170m enough to kick off a five well drilling campaign, two in the south and three in the north including Zebedee prospect.

All in all, these transactions are a positive for the Falklands in general and Desire in particular, the premium value attributed by FOGL for Desire seems rather steep to me but it is difficult to decide how much cheap paper to issue against cheaper paper. There is a little part of me that says that in the absence of any drilling, the Desire share price was only going in one direction and this deal might have been cheaper a bit further down the track, unless of course you were more bearish about the FOGL price than the Desire price……………..

This deal does mean that the combined entity will be a much stronger platform to drive exploration and, particularly for FOGL expand the portfolio and lessen the risk of having only two wells to drill.

And finally…

The noisy neighbours were quietened down by the Eoropean Champions last night and the City and England keeper appeared to be concentrating on his hair too much.

Utd got a draw, probably should have been a win but escaped in the end.

Tonight all the Boropa cup teams line up against assorted junior teams in Europe.

Frankie Dettori took a fall yesterday and broke his ankle thus ending his season. Most distressing will be his missing the ride on Treve in the Arc on Sunday.

And Michael Clarke is a doubt for the Ashes series with the first test in Brisbane starting on 21st November.