The Ups and Downs of Frank Giustra’s Oil Businesses

POSTED ON August 25, 2014 BY Tommy Humphreys
CATEGORY Petroamerica Oil, Petromanas Energy,

Frank Giustra in focus in Haiti, photo @Frank_Giustra

Accomplished natural resources investor Frank Giustra has two long term investments in the junior energy sector, Colombian focused Petroamerica Oil (PTA.v), and European focused Petromanas Energy (PMI.v). Disclosure note, I own both of them.

In early trading Monday, one of these companies was climbing strongly, while the other was heading in the wrong direction.

Confirmed breakout for Petroamerica Oil (PTA.v)

We have tracked the Colombian focused Petroamerica for 2 years and a week on this blog, since its grown from 1500 boepd to 6000 +. With the acquisition of Suroco Energy in July, production was expected to climb to 9000 bopd+ on the way to 30k bopd, according to a Bloomberg article.

Last week, PTA announced increased reserves in the assets acquired by Suroco, however those assets were offline due to a local community blocade. The reserve increases were enough to ignite an upward climb in the share price of PTA, which traded strongly last week, closing at $0.385 Friday.

This morning, for the first time on our radar, shares in PTA traded above $0.40, reaching $0.44 before levelling off to $0.41, where they last traded at press time.

This is a breakout for Petroamerica, which market technicians will want to see confirmed by continued heavy volume in the coming trading days. Petroamerica has a new short term target of $0.50 and a longer term target of $1.00, according to our CEO Technician, who marked up the following chart.

Here are the three latest news releases from the company:

Today: Petroamerica Announces Issuance of Stock Options

August 19, 2014: Petroamerica announces 2014 second quarter results, a material increase in Suroco reserves and provides an operations and new business update

July 15, 2014: Petroamerica and Suroco complete Plan of Arrangement

Drilling slows for Petromanas (PMI.v) in Albania, while French reserves surprise

Mr. Giustra's other core energy investment, Petromanas Energy, is currently drilling the Molisht-1 well in Southern Albania, which is 25% to PMI and 75% to Royal Dutch Shell. This is significant in that Shell's market cap is more than 1000x that of Petromanas, yet the Albanian prospect receives meaningful attention in the super major's disclosure.

Drilling at Molisth-1 has slowed, according to the company, which now expects to reach Total Depth of 5800 meters in Q4 of this year, rather than Q3. The market is selling this news Monday, with the company falling from $0.31 to $0.24 in early trading, before climbing to $0.265 at press time. The company is still in an uptrend and is currently consolidating, according to the CEO Technician, who marked up this chart:

PMI.V_Weekly

The plus side for Giustra and other investors in Petromanas, is that hydrocarbons and natural fractures have already been found in drilling. Natural fractures are key to generating strong flow rates. Shell and PMI's analog is the Val D'Agri field in Italy, where some wells produce in excess of 10,000 bopd.

Petromanas put out a second news release Monday discussing its French gas exploration acreage, which Haywood Securities says demonstrates that there is more to Petromanas than its Albanian projects.

"We have not highlighted PMI’s France potential much as we awaited independent resource assessments on prospects prior to assigning value. PMI acquired its France acreage when it acquired Gallic Energy a few years back for ~$20MM. In a separate release today PMI noted that the gross lease unrisked gas initially in place on one of the prospects (the Saucède Prospect) on the Ledeuix Permit is estimated to contain P50 best estimate of 556.3 Bcf of gas (P90 232.1 Bcf; P10 1,423.2 Bcf). This is one of several prospects on the Ledeuix permit, which is in a historically productive region of a country with a marked supply/demand imbalance, favorable fiscal terms, and extensive infrastructure."

Wishful thinking: Look for the French assets to be the focus of the spinout company, should Petromanas and Shell prove their Albanian assets economic, and somebody takes a run at PMI.

Here are the three latest news releases for the company:

August 25, 2014: Petromanas Energy Inc. announces Gas in Place estimates for Saucède Prospect in France

August 25, 2014: Petromanas provides operational update and announces filing of Q2 2014 financial results

June 20, 2014: Petromanas provides further update on Molisht-1 drilling

Note Giustra has a third oil business, that is Domenica Fiore olive oil, and he would probably cut off our supply if we failed to mention it in this article. DF has been ranked the #1 premium olive oil in the world at competitions.

Summer lunch,fresh from my garden. Add salt, garlic & @domenica_fiore.So good pic.twitter.com/Y0I5KFVqjP

— Frank Giustra (@Frank_Giustra) August 16, 2014

More: Orvieto Domecia Fiore Italia

Update on valuation of French acreage

Update: We spoke briefly with Haywood Securities energy analyst Al Knowles Monday morning about the potential value of PMI's French acreage. The p50 best estimate 556.3 Bcf of gas is roughly equivalent to 50-60 million barrels of oil in place. Recovery factors would be less, but have been as high as 80% in the Aquitaine basin in some instances, Mr. Bishop said. We have heard $8-$10 per barrel as reasonable figures for oil in place on shore in Europe, which suggests the Saucède Prospect could be very significant for the company.

Always do your own due diligence.

Tommy Humphreys

Tommy Humphreys, 30, is an entrepreneur, investor and writer from Vancouver, Canada. He founded CEO.CA, a popular junior mining and Canadian finance blog, in 2012. He has been the president of Pacific Website Company Inc., a private marketing and web development company, since 2007. Tommy has authored articles for Globe and Mail, Financial Post and others. He speaks at select conferences. Reach him by email: tommy@ceo.ca. Follow him on Twitter: @TommyHump More →

Twitter: @tommyhump

tommyhump@gmail.com

Tommy Humphreys

Twitter: @tommyhump

tommyhump@gmail.com

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