WTI $97.65 +27c , Brent $111.61 +63c Differential $13.96 +36c

Good afternoon, the Kentz announcement this morning meant a flash blog and I went to the meeting. So this afternoon this is a real quickie as there are a  number of announcements out which I will give a one-liner to, if you want any more info please e-mail me.

 

Oil Price

Not much changed, a small rally across the board inspired on Friday by the jobs data, today WTI has strengthened and Brent eased a bit.

Cuadrilla

If you for any reason didn’t read the interview in the Sunday Times yesterday with Allan Campbell, founder of Cuadrilla you should do anything you can to get a copy. It is impossible to put into words what he said, or more importantly, how he said it but X-rated or not it certainly makes the point for fraccing in no uncertain way.

Kentz Corp

Not much to add to my comments this morning in my flash blog (see the website for it) but the meeting was good and despite good, rigorous questioning there appear no funnies in the deal. Valerus appears to be a good quality company with good growth and strong margins. The SG&A charge will fall but this is not about synergies (indeed the two Houston offices will remain) but bringing another quality engineering solutions company into Kentz.

How things have changed since AmecGate, the deal was in the process then and had to be back-burnered, now it reappears and I am confident it will be well received.

Now heading for a market cap of a billion and with the order book up yet again, Kentz will be on peoples radar screen where I have been trying to put it for a very long time. This acquisition is earnings accretive and thus I am very happy to retain my view that the stock is still cheap.

Gulf Keystone

Today the company appear to have learned that they are not facing an appeal and have accepted a settlement of £17.5m towards their costs. More tomorrow when I can track down the sources but despite the rise today we are still in very cheap territory.

Tullow

A duster for Tullow in Ethiopia this morning albeit with gas shows. The Tultule-1 well was not as good as the nearby well before but does have possibilities and the company are persisting with the program.

Premier

Premier has withdrawn from offshore Kenya, although it remains committed onshore as per recent farm-in with Taipan.

Trinity Exploration and Production

Readers will know that this is a big favourite of mine and I rate the management very highly.

Today the company has announced a good oil discovery in the TGAL-1 well finding that five targets all containing good oil bearing sands. With 547 feet of oil pay indicating 28-30 API crude this bodes very well.

I’m not sure why Trinity hasn’t performed better than it has, its probably due to its unsuccessful predecessors, but this is definitely one for the watch list if not the buy list.

 And finally…

The football was again a bit odd at the weekend as United and Chelski lost and Arsenal and Everton drew as did the noisy neighbours.

And….Arsenal and Spurs are drawn to meet in the first round proper of the FA Cup…

All bets are off in the cricket I suspect, not all over but Captain Cook has to lead from the front on Friday in Perth

Another Aussie winner as Robertson beats Selby in the snooker coming from 1-5 down.

My rugby news on Friday was totally wrong as a number pointed out, actually I was just looking a year into the future with no English clubs playing in the Heineken Cup! Even so hats off to Connacht who went to Toulouse and came away with a win, not a regular occurrence but great news for Sarries all the same!