Shell, BG/Ophir, SOCO, and Amec

WTI $102.04 -29c ; Brent $107.72 -1.50 ; B/WTI Diff – $5.68 -1.39; Natural Gas $3.60 +4c

Good morning

The Lincoln Memorial, part of the USA that was shut after the world’s greatest democracy started to shut down when agreement couldn’t be reached, the CFTC was unable to change derivative rules and the reserve currency of the world was under pressure. Won’t be long before the BP Trial is called off as proceedings in courts across the land came to a halt.

The FT in London carries a number of ‘strong’ articles today, few if any sympathetic with the situation, one headlined ‘America flirts with self-destruction’, the leader is biting.

Oil Price

Even the API stats didn’t help the oil market bulls yesterday as they showed a stock build of 4.55m barrels higher than markets had been expecting. Elsewhere production number remain positive and Libya have announced that production is still a solid 700,000-800,000 b/d.

In Russia the a number of the Greenpeace protesters have been charged with piracy and the outlook is bleak for the remainder………….

Shell/Total – Iran

Both CEO’s of Shell and Total spoke at the Oil & Money conference yesterday and both took the opportunity to call for the lifting of sanctions on Iran. Both leaders said that lifting of sanctions would be vital to meeting the worlds future energy needs even if they were amongst the biggest traders in the area in the past.

BG/Ophir

BG has announced that Block 4 appraisal has been completed with the drill-stem test of the Pweza gas field offshore southern Tanzania. The test flowed at a maximum 57mscf/d constrained by equipment indicating that development wells would flow at a higher rate. As one of the most prolific reservoirs in Tanzania BG say that the area including Chewa and Ngisi holds resources of around 4 TCF, part of BG’s 13 TCF in country.

Ophir added in their announcement that the project economics would be improved by reducing the number of development wells and simplifying the process.

We remain positive on Ophir with a target price of 620p and to be frank I am quite surprised at the share price fall this morning, I guess that either me or the market is missing something!

SOCO International

You all know that I am an unadulterated bull of SOCO although sometimes I fail to get my message across and even with dynamite results from trophy assets some potential investors will have some sort of caveat.

After today’s result on TGT the bears must surely be struggling as the well ‘has exceeded all pre-test expectations, flowing at over 27,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day’. The final test flowed at an average maximum rate of 5,156 bopd and 32.5 mmscfd of gas.

The company are rightly chuffed to bits about this well which is one of the most prolific individual wells ever tested in Vietnam, indeed they claim that ‘TGT is clearly a very significant oil field by anyone’s standards’.

This result will only make SOCO a more attractive beast and confirms its potential as a takeover target probably from a buyer that may even be local in the east….

Amec

The FT today ran an article that suggested that the NMP consortium that runs the clean-up of waste at Sellafield is ‘closing in on a deal’ to extend its £22bn contract. Amec are in this consortium and indeed at the recent results the company were surprisingly confident that they would be re-engaged despite criticism by the Commons public accounts committee and the National Audit Office.

And finally…

Lord Kinnock at long last admits to supporting the wrong team as he is evicted from his seat at Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC for over-celebrating a Cardiff goal having bought tickets for the home end. Other clubs may not have been quite so easy on him although I’m told he specifically doesn’t like going back to Sheffield….

Another good night for Arsenal and Mesut Ozil, just think what it could have been like for Gooners fans for the last 8 years if they had put their hands in their pockets before….Chelski won easy enough but apparently Torres has an injured knee, thank god it’s not his nails….

A couple of tasty matches tonight, specifically the noisy neighbours entertain holders Bayern Munich and Utd go to the Ukraine.

Wally Mit brolly got off to a great start nearly winning from 1-4 down at half time against the tractor boys, Jon Richmond of this desk and a mad Ipswich fan tells me that they nearly lost it at the death…