Desire Petroleum

<>Desire Petroleum plc (Desire) is a UK company listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) dedicated to exploring for oil and gas in the North Falkland Basin.

Desire has recently completed a 6 well exploration programme. The Liz well encountered dry gas and gas condensate at 2 separate levels while other wells recorded shows.
Together with the Rockhopper Exploration Sea Lion oil discovery in the licence to the north, these wells have provided significant encouragement for the potential of the North Falkland Basin. The oil at Sea Lion is of particular interest as this has demonstrated that oil is trapped in potentially significant quantities in a fan sandstone on the east flank of the basin. It is believed that over 50% of this east flank play fairway is on Desire operated acreage.

Desire has now completed new 3D seismic acquisition which provides coverage over the east flank play, Ann, Pam and Helen prospects. The results from fast-track processing of priority areas are provided in the 2011 CPR. A farm-out to Rockhopper has been announced. The revised equities are shown on the licence map (subject to regulatory approval and completion of the farm-in well). Desire Petroleum

Rockhopper Exploration

British Geological Survey

Argos Resources



Latest Press Realeses from Desire

Cheers for up date Eddie

http://www.falklandnews.com/public/story.cfm?get=3759&source=3

On 17 January 2006 Councillors met with Katherine Royal from the British Embassy in Buenos Aires and Rebecca Stevens from the Falklands Desk in Whitehall. Cllr Summers gave no detail of their meeting but it is thought that the FCO staff members were on a familiarisation visit.

http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=7145

Three MPs on a week Falklands visit

Three United Kingdom MPs will be visiting the Falkland Islands for a week in mid February in a familiarization tour. They will be accompanied by the Islands London Representative Sukey Cameron.

According to the official release the three guests are Dai Harvard, Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney; Daniel Kawczynski, Conservative MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham and Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey and will be arriving in the Islands February 15 and leaving on the 22nd.
The full program includes meetings with Councillors, Governor Howard Pearce, government officials, private sector representatives, a day with the British military at Mount Pleasant Complex and a weekend visiting Camp establishments.

On their first day of activity, Thursday 16, the MPs will be briefed by local government officials, visit the Fisheries Department, (could include a tour of the patrol vessel Dorada), Chamber of Commerce, Department of Agriculture and Mineral Resources, plus an office call to Governor Pearce.

The following day will be spent at the Mount Pleasant Complex and in the evening the Governor and Mrs. Pearce will host dinner at Government House.

On the week end the MPs will be flown to Hill Cove and Pebble Island to meet with Camp Councillors and residents, returning Sunday mid afternoon for a battlefield tour.

Monday begins early with a flower wreath laying at the Liberation Monument followed by a briefing at the Education Department and a tour of the Community School to meet with senior pupils. At 18:30 Legislative Council members will receive the MPs in Gilbert House followed by dinner hosted at a local hotel.

Tuesday at 11:00 hours the delegation is scheduled to depart the Falkland Islands.

Mr Havard sits on the Wales Labour Party Joint Policy Committee and holds office as Secretary on the All-Party Mountain Rescue and Search Teams Group (2004 -). He is also a member of the Select Committee on Defence, a position he has held since 2003, and has recently departed the Commons Select Committee for Regulatory Reform where he was a Member from 2001-2005.

Mr Kawczynski was elected as Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury & Atcham in May 2005. Prior to his appointment he had ten years experience in the telecommunications industry. He travelled extensively abroad promoting British business and expresses a particular interest in Africa. Two years before his election he left the industry to concentrate on his Parliamentary Spokesman duties in Shrewsbury.

Prior to becoming an MP, Mr Alexander was Press Officer for the Scottish Liberal Democrats (1993-95) and then Director of Communications for the European Movement from 1996 to 1999 before being appointed Head of Communications for the cross-party Britain in Europe from 1999-2004. Shortly after his election to

Bobbybingo You need to activate your mail box for me to reply or add email if send again.

Oil price fuels Shell record

By Upstream staff


Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell posted a record $23 billion profit for 2005 today, up 30% from the previous year, as higher oil prices and fat refining margins outweighed a sharp fall in production.


Shell said that current cost of supply (CCS) net profit, which excludes unrealised inventory gains, rose 3% to $5.395 billion in the fourth quarter.

Excluding exceptional items that resulted in a net gain of $34 million, the "clean" figure was in line with an average forecast of $5.385 billion in a Reuters poll of 10 analysts.

Shell's $22.94 billion CCS result for 2005 is also a record annual profit for a UK-listed company, analysts said, beating the previous record of $17 billion the supermajor set in 2004.

Its exploration and production business was the main profit driver, with earnings jumping 22% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier.

This came even though production fell to 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from 3.84 million boepd in the fourth quarter of 2004. Hurricanes hit its production hard in the Gulf of Mexico in the past two quarters.

Shell replaced just 60% to 70% of the oil it pumped with new additions to reserves, measured under Securities & Exchange Commission rules, a Shell spokesman said.

It is up, however, from its rate of 49% in 2004 excluding divestments, or 19% including divestments, the spokesman said.

Shell said it continued to target 100% replacement over 2004-2008 but that most proved reserves would be added in the latter part of the period.

Shell also said it expected to return $5 billion to shareholders by repurchasing stock in 2006, in line with last year's share buy backs.

"They did have the flexibility to increase that, so I think some investors will not be impressed," Jason Kenney, head of oil and gas research at ING said.

Citigroup said in a research note that the failure to hike the buyback amount was "likely to raise question marks over whether the company is planning acquisitions."

Meanwhile, Shell said its investment plans in Iran remained on track despite an international stand-off over the Islamic state's nuclear ambitions.

The supermajor's exploration and production boss Malcolm Brinded said discussions on a planned multi-billion dollar natural gas project continued as earlier envisaged.

"It stays on track and progress (continues) towards an FID (final investment decision) which will be next year," he told a press conference and conference call.

Shell also has other operations in Iran, apart from the natural gas project.

Hi all

Well no change on the price again today. DES is sitting above the 200 day moving average at the moment, it's been a while since we have DES has been on top of the 200 DMA. The sells seem to have been greater than the buys over the past few days, so this has me thinking the MMs are playing a part. This also has me thinking some upward movement may be expected (news maybe). Lets hope it's sooner than later.





Good Luck All

Eddie

Looks to me like Rockhopper get the priorety for whatever reason.

Progress Report Friday 3rd February 2006
144km of seismic was acquired this week prior to the Admiral returning to Monte
Video for a scheduled refit.
The replacement boat, the Gulf Pacific, is now acquiring seismic in the North Graben
Area for Rockhopper Exploration. The Gulf Pacific will move on to the FOGL permit
and begin operations later this month.

http://gulffleet.com/images/pacific/index.htm

Repsol YPF is takeover target
BP and Eni 'mulling bids' for Spanish player

By Upstream staff


Spanish oil and gas player Repsol YPF is in the sights of both UK supermajor BP and Italian energy giant Eni for a possible takeover bid, Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported.

A bidder would be looking to take advantage of the drop in Repsol YPF's share price after it downgraded its proven oil and gas reserves by a quarter last month and the expiry from today of the Spanish government's "golden share" in the company that protected it from a hostile takeover, according to the report, quoted by Reuters.

"Both energy giants have studied in recent days the viability of presenting a bid for the Spanish-Argentine company," El Mundo said, referring to BP, Eni and Repsol YPF.

The paper provided no source, and Eni refused to comment on market speculation. Repsol YPF has a market capitalisation of around 27 billion euros ($32.6 billion).

Buying Repsol YPF would give Eni or BP leadership in the oil market in Spain and Argentina and a privileged position for operating in Latin America, the newspaper said.

A deal would also give a buyer access to the board of the Spanish energy giant that will be spawned by Gas Natural's planned 22.7 billion euro takeover of power firm Endesa, El Mundo said.

Repsol YPF has 30.8% of Gas Natural. Its stake in the merged Gas Natural-Endesa would be half that and it plans to cut the stake further to 5% to 10%, the newspaper reported. However, it would remain a core shareholder of the new group, it said.

Repsol shares fell 8% on 26 January after it reduced its proven oil and gas reserves by 25% and said the cut would hit 2006 profits. The shares have fallen slightly further since then and closed on Friday at 22.25 euros, down nearly 10% so far this year.

The Spanish government decided last November to scrap golden shares it held in formerly state-owned companies, bowing to a European Court decision in May 2003 which made the special holdings illegal.

EDITOR, ENERGY

A CRITICAL shortage of drilling rigs is threatening the reviving oil and gas hunt in the UK North Sea. Just about anything with a reasonable reputation is booked up despite rocketing charter rates.

And the market is about to tighten further with three semi-submersibles scheduled to head elsewhereone each to Brazil (for Shell), Norway (the Bredford Dolphin) and West Africa.

Bob Lyons, MD at Peak Group, told Energy that 2006 is booked solid and so, too, is much of 2007.

Moreover, oil companies are still scrambling to secure drilling slots despite charter rates now climbing past $250,000 per day for competent semi-submersibles.

And there is no sign of a let-up in sight–rates are still rising.

Indeed, the Bredford Dolphin will command $360,000 on its three-year Norway deployment with DNO and other Norwegian Continental Shelf players.

The only part of the market where there may be limited relief is jack-ups, as an additional unit is being brought into UK waters on long-term contract shortly.

Soaring oil prices, coupled with revived interest in the remaining potential of the UK Continental Shelf, are driving the boom, which is showing no sign of collapse despite the latest tax grab by Chancellor Gordon Brown, though any meaningful impact on investment is unlikely to show until next year at the earliest.

But this is a different drilling boom to anything experienced in the past because it is the now large cohort of small and medium-sized independents that are driving the demand for rigs–not the majors as was previously always the case.

And the biggest chunk of that demand is being coordinated by Aberdeen company Peak, which has come to the fore in just three years as the number-one client for the drilling companies by commanding more than a third of the UK well construction market last year.

Three years ago, Peak did two wells in the UK/NW Europe based on its full suite of well construction services. Last year, the company notched up 24 exploration and appraisal wells on behalf of its client oil companies, which was roughly 30% of the entire 2005 E&A total of 82 wells.

Without either additional rigs coming in or spare slots appearing, there are going to be a lot of disappointed people in the North Sea this year because the wells wont get drilled, Lyons told Energy.

On that basis, there will be fewer wells drilling on the UK Continental Shelf because there is less rig capacity than last year.

That said, Lyons is hopeful that Peak will, in fact, drill more E&A wells, but this is contingent on getting lucky with potentially spare well slots and negotiations to bring in two additional semi-submersibles from elsewhere, one of which is apparently fourth generation.

From our standpoint, if we can secure sufficient rig capacity, well in fact drill more than last year. If we succeed in bringing in rigs from elsewhere, that would change the picture considerably.

If one looks at overall E&A activity levels going through the year, there is something of the order of 30 firm wells, 19 probable and 40 possibles on the UKCS.

PEAK Group has identified a total of 49 UK wells to be drilled this year from companies it is in discussions with, says MD Bob Lyons.

We will not undertake all of these wells, even if there was rig capacity. However, it is indicative of volume.

Right now, there is no rig capacity on the UK Continental Shelf. There is some capacity later on in 2007, but there are already people in the market for those units and some are booking up for 2008.

We could see this coming a mile off at the start of 2005.

Lyons said Peak had held several rounds of discussions with its client group of mostly small independents in the hope that they could be persuaded to book ahead while rig rates were still modest.

But while there was the will to drill, many were constrained, perhaps by farm-in negotiations designed to spread risk or financial restrictions.

Last year, we had the opportunity to secure rigs for large parts of this year at what, in todays market, were very attractive rates around $160,000 during a first round robin. It was around $180,000 when we had another go. We had a further go at just over $200,000, another at $225,000 and, latterly, $250,000.

You only have to go back 14 months. On New Years Eve 2004, we released a semi off contract in the North Sea at $52,000 a day.

Lyons stressed the need for smaller players to work co-operatively through a well construction management specialist such as Peak as it had reached the point where, even if they had spare capacity, rig owners were no longer interested in short, two and three-well contracts.

They wanted one, two and three-year deals.

On the hunt for possible spare slots on already chartered rigs, he said: Weve spoken to a number of operators with rigs on long-term contract, trying to get into a position where we can take on any spare capacity for work at short notice. Some of these guys have rigs for longterm programmes, but speak to them and they dont actually know how those programmes will be structured.

What were now doing with a lot of the companies that were working for is getting the technical work done ... permitting, site surveys, equipment ordered and so forth ... which enables us to move at short notice and utilise any drilling slots that become available.

Its important that we focus on putting together multi-operator programmes because, otherwise, it will be very difficult for smaller E&P players with a desire to drill, say, one or two wells to secure any kind of rig.

If the number of E&A wells drilled in 2006 falls, this has serious implications for UK reserves replacement. 2005 was not a particularly good year, with about 300million barrels oil equivalent located.

Analysts Hannon & Westwood believe an annual programme of at least 50 such wells is required every year for the next few years to deliver an acceptable stream of new, albeit mostly modest, oil&gas discoveries.

Hannon & Westwood said at the end of last year that there were still about 1,200 leads to pursue in UK waters and that there was a reasonable certainty that some fairly large finds would be made, especially with 23-27billion barrels oil equivalent remaining in proven and potential reserves, versus 34billion barrels produced to date.

O.K. own up, who sold two lots of 250k

I thought they were Buys lucky and looking at the price today they must of been.

Ditto, Marky. Looks to me like they were bought at mid price.

120K buy trade just gone through.

Marky and Oily, I assumed that because the price fell yesterday the 250ks were sells but I hope you're right and they were buys at mid price.

Hmm, the 120K buy from this morning has been deleted from the trade page. How bizarre.

I see that Oily....." lad" but still shows on AD web pages and then a 120,000 at 4.29pm today,

The last few days some big buys have come through........most strange!!

Hi all

Thanks to all for the recent updates.

DES is looking good and has been since moving off the 0.2400p support level. The market may go as far as testing the green fibonacci line, however todays candle has got smaller and is within the shadow of recent traiding. This level is being tested again (0.3550p). If the support holds tomorrow DES should be on the move back up. The information I have for todays trading is total trade value 91.9K, (buy 27.1k) (sell 28.2k) (unknown 36.0k). If the unknown turns out to be a buy, we may see DES open with a gap up. The oil and gas sector is now moving up which may have a knock on effect. DES is up 27.08% since the support of 0.2400p.





Good Luck All

Eddie

Hi all

We can use the chart above.

Unfortunatly it wasn't to be today. DES is in a good position to buy, however the rig situation may slow this a little. The hammer is said to be hammering out the bottom, all things bieng well DES should be on the move up again soon.

Good Luck All

Eddie

Desire share price is being overtaken by by an outfit that hasn't even started a 3D survey yet. With FOGL talking about 10 billion barrels spread over 25,000 km2 the price rises today to an all time high. However I doubt that the city is excited about a drilling campaign that will probably not start til 2008 so something must be happening behind the scenes. A farm-in is the obvious conclusion particularly as Shell and her fellow global titans are awash with cash. With Venezuela suddenly grumbling about British interests in the Falklands it looks like a deal is close. I hope Desire is part of it, the share price doesn't seem to think so.

Thank you Eddie for our evening chart, I look forward to the day when Fibonacci is overcome by good news.

Hi all

Thanks to all for the updates

DES looking prety strong today, the candle has bullish implications. The trades seemed a bit odd though. Never the less a nice gain. DES opend up higher than yesterdays close and finnished on the days high. If you blend the candles of the past 2 or 3 days, we have a bullish hammer. All being well we should see a continuation as DES is in a good area for more buying.





Good Luck All

Eddie