I put a small amount into STAR because north sea gas is in decline & the Zebrugge to Bacton import pipeline may not be able to cope with peak demand.

So I started looking around for companies in the gas storeage business & I found STAR.

I bought them expecting them to gradually rise but they haven't moved so far.

The Humbly Grove storeage project is on budget and on schedule to start commercial operations in October 2005

The next storeage project is in Lincolnshire.

They are also pumping oil from small UK wells so the current OIL price is great for profits.

I don't buy many AIM shares but this one is an exception.

Results in line with expectations. Humbly Grove expected to come on line in October with the storage already pre-let to traders.

Star Energy Group plc Significant Shareholders at March 17th 2005

European Acquisition Capital 19.96%

Artemis Investment Management 18.34%

Fidelity Investments 9.74%

Vitol Holding S.a.r.l. 9.48%

Lansdowne Partners 6.94%

Tudor Capital (UK) 5.69%

UBS Warburg (MM) 4.32%

Invesco Perpetual Asset Mgt. 4.16%

Och-Ziff Management Europe Limited 3.79%


Some big names have taken a share in STAR and I am going to add to my holding.

Good to see these edging upward again after a long quiet spell.

Hopefully we'll see a steady rise in sp as we near the opening date of the new gas storage site (which I believe is still on schedule for October, unless anyone knows any different?)

got a few of these...

chart looks reasonably positive, oil and gas stocks moving up, may have another nibble soon...

Showing signs of life today.

I wonder why?

AGM statement just released.

Humbly Grove gas storage facility is on schedule, which is good news.


Star Energy Group PLC
24 June 2005

Star Energy Group plc

AGM Statement

At today's Annual General Meeting Stephen Gutteridge, Chairman, gave the
following update:

Humbly Grove

Construction of the Humbly Grove gas storage facility is progressing well and
remains on budget and on schedule for commercial operations in October of this
year. The 27 km pipeline from Humbly Grove to Barton Stacey, where it links to
Transco's National Transmission System, has been installed and tested. Drilling
of the four gas storage wells has been completed, although this took longer than
anticipated. The summer months will see a period of intense activity centred on
the hook up of the major plant and equipment at the site.

Other Gas Storage Projects

The company is continuing to make progress in accelerating the Albury and
Bletchingley gas production and storage projects. Drilling permitting is
underway for both sites as is the preparatory work required for the storage
permitting application.

The planning application for the Welton gas storage project remains to be
assessed by Lincolnshire County Council. The Company's latest information is
that the date for assessment is July 2005 although the date has been the subject
of continued postponement since the application was lodged in November 2003.

Interim Production and Profitability

Production in the first five months of 2005 has averaged approximately 3100
boepd. This is lower than expected caused by a combination of well down-time and
production disruptions caused by the extended drilling activities at Humbly
Grove. This has also affected the production of gas that the company converts
into electricity for export and consequently electricity sales are lower than
budget.

The impact of this on our first half performance has been offset to some extent
by higher oil prices and a reduced proportion of hedged production since the end
of March 2005.

Outlook

The Company remains fully focussed on bringing the Humbly Grove gas storage
project on stream in October. The UK summer / winter gas price spreads remain
strong for the next few years, underpinning the value of the project and our
strategy for further gas storage development. Having completed our first year as
a listed Company, the Board is able to look to the future with confidence.

Resolutions passed

Star is pleased to announce that all the resolutions proposed in the notice of
the meeting were duly passed.

24 June 2005

Enquiries:

Star Energy 020 7730 6663
Roland Wessel, Chief Executive

College Hill 020 7457 2020
Jim Joseph/Ben Brewerton



This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

Star Energy Group PLC
13 July 2005



NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OR TRANSMISSION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE
UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN OR THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND



STAR ENERGY GROUP PLC



PROPOSED ACQUISITION OF PENTEX MANAGEMENT LIMITED

AND

35.0 MILLION PLACING





Star Energy Group plc ('Star Energy' or the 'Company'), the UK based energy
company, announces the proposed acquisition of Pentex Management Limited
('Pentex') and a Placing.



Key points



Proposed Acquisition

Pentex is a privately owned UK based energy company, which has oil and
gas assets in the UK producing approximately 2,000 boepd (net) including
approximately 1.4 mmscfd of gas (equivalent to approximately 230 boepd).

Pentex had Proven and Proven and Probable remaining reserves of 9.5
mmboe and 16.4 mmboe respectively, as at 1 January 2005.

Pentex's assets consist of operated interests in 15 onshore licenses
and appraisal and exploration opportunities in the UK onshore sector (East
Midlands Basin and Weald Basin).

In addition, the Directors believe that there may be potential for gas
storage development opportunities in the Pentex portfolio.

The consideration for the Acquisition will be approximately $67.6
million (approximately 38.5 million), payable in cash on Completion, for the
entire issued share capital of Pentex and, in addition, the existing Pentex
Group's current debt of $14.4 million (approximately 8.2 million) will be
refinanced.

A potential further payment of approximately 5.1 million will be
payable if, inter alia, planning permission is obtained in respect of a gas
storage project at Gainsborough.

The Directors believe that the Acquisition will be earnings enhancing
in the first full year of ownership.



Placing and New Debt Facilities

Placing to raise approximately 35.0 million by the issue of
19,125,684 New Ordinary Shares at 183.0 pence per share.

An additional debt facility of 20.0 million has been entered into.

Of the amount being raised in the Placing, 18.5 million will be used
to fund the proposed Acquisition, 5.7 million will be used to accelerate the
development of the potential Albury and Bletchingley gas storage facilities
and the balance will be used for general corporate purposes

European Acquisition Capital Limited ('EAC') has entered into
non-binding heads of terms to sell its stake in the Company to a leading
Fortune 500 multinational oil and gas company (the 'Prospective Purchaser').
The Prospective Purchaser has, in addition, indicated its intention to
subscribe for 19.06 per cent. of the New Ordinary Shares at the Placing Price.





Commenting on the proposed acquisition and the placing the Chairman, Stephen
Gutteridge, stated:



'The acquisition of Pentex will consolidate Star Energy's position as a leading
participant in the onshore UK oil and gas industry and as the key owner of
depleted reservoir gas storage opportunities onshore UK. The Acquisition is
expected to increase production from Star Energy's current level of
approximately 3,100 boepd (net) to approximately 5,100 boepd (net) and will
significantly increase Star Energy's Proven and Probable reserves as at 1
January 2005 from 14.7 mmboe to 31.1 mmboe. In addition to the increased oil
reserves and production, the Acquisition may add further potential gas storage
opportunities and provides operational synergies and incremental cash flow
within the Enlarged Group.'

see RNS for full text

Baza

RNS 14/07/05 12:11 Petronas Int Corp Aquires 16.9%

After months of inactivity, hurrah a flurry of activity with a mass of buys today, presumably after the markets had finally digested that huge document regarding the purchase of Pentax.

Pentax looks to be quite a canny buy - perhaps STAR might slip out of the shadows and onto peoples radars at long last.

I have a modest holding in STAR

I think some of you have misunderstood the gas storage part of Star Energy's business, which has nothing to do with LNG. They intend to buy gas in the summer when it is cheap, inject it under pressure it into depleted oil reservoirs like Humbley Grove and then produce it during the winter months when gas prices are high in order to meet swing demand. The gas stored in the reservoir can be produced to enable the gas network to cope with periods of high demand. A typical gas contract has a "swing factor" included which is the amount by which the gas purchaser can increase or decrease supply from an agreed average rate. The importance of storage is in enabling companies to meet these swing rates. Currently we have very little gas storage capacity (the Rough offshore storage field being one of the most important) - it is about 3600 mcm (million cubic metres). If all of the planned projects went ahead then we would see an increase of about 1750 mcm of storage capacity. Star's Humbly Grove is about 280 mcm. Of the rest about 700 mcm is still at the conceptual stage. So, aside from the oil STAR produce the gas storage side of the business looks like a long term winner as does HMY (which I hold). I dont hold STAR at the moment but I think it looks like a good long term hold and might dive in soon.

Another RNS Click below
21/07/05 11:06 Petronas Int Corp SAR 3 - Star Energy Group RNS

A trickle of buys is steadily turning into a constant stream. Is there something afoot or is the upward movement in the SP simply a vindication of the managements proposed purchase of Pentax ?

Starting to get interesting ................

Heading north again ........ up 14.5% today. Looks as if the MMs are steadily running out of stock.

Looking very good, click below

03/08/05 11:34 Artemis Investmt Man SAR 3 - Star Energy Group RNS

Things are getting interesting

18/08/05 - 14:17 Holding(s) in Company RNS
18/08/05 - 13:17 Holding(s) in Company RNS
16/08/05 - 14:13 Holding(s) in Company RNS
11/08/05 - 13:13 Holding(s) in Company RNS
11/08/05 - 13:12 Holding(s) in Company RNS
11/08/05 - 13:08 Holding(s) in Company RNS
11/08/05 - 13:05 Holding(s) in Company RNS
11/08/05 - 13:03 Holding(s) in Company RNS
10/08/05 - 14:33 Star Energy says Petronas' interest in co raised AFX
10/08/05 - 13:54 Holding(s) in Company RNS

05/08/05 10:25 Star Energy Group (STAR) Result of EGM RNS
04/08/05 10:17 CONOCOPHILLIPS (COC) Indonesia govt awards 9 oil/gas concessions to local/foreign cos AFX

the oil price is rising again, good close in NY friday, may see the nex leg up commencing soon...


oil stocks are due a good week if this continues towards the $70 target price...

05/09/05 - 10:24 Star Energy H1 pretax losses narrow; Humbly Grove AFX

06/10/05 - 08:28 Star Energy to start Humbly Grove ops by end-Oct AFX

Hi apple, well done for your persistance etc, we both thought this would be a good long term one.

Having said that like the moron I am at times bought in and got shot quickly.

Never mind. I can see this stock as a real pension provider.

Safe I feel and plenty of upside leading to a nice divi.
Growth is obviously there.

Still in coal?


cheers GF.

http://www.interconnector.com/Enhancement/CapacityDemand.htm

cheers GF.

Interesting stuff - Star gets a mention (sp up today I notice).


Pressure is building for more gas storage
By Thomas Catan
Published: October 25 2005 03:00 | Last updated: October 25 2005 03:00

In a humming control room 18 miles off north-east England, two technicians are busy pumping gas into the earth.


ADVERTISEMENT




The process is going well, one says, pointing to a bank of flashing screens. Several hundred feet below the offshore platform, the gas reservoir is fast approaching capacity.

If Britain suffers an unusually cold winter, the giant gas storage facility at Rough, near Hull, will assume a critical importance to the country. In an emergency, it can provide more than 10 per cent of the UK's peak gas demand for 77 days.

The company that operates it is investing 38m to make sure it works flawlessly. "We've prepared well for this winter," says GlennSibbick, operations director at Centrica Storage, surveying recent work on the platform.

So far this year, Rough has worked 99.9 per cent of the time, a big improvement on patchy performance under previous owners.

Ministers and businessmen alike are hoping it maintains that record throughout this critical winter. The last time it broke down, in January 2004, the price of gas soared from 37p a therm to 1.60 in a matter of hours.

"If Rough went down this winter, all hell would break loose," says Niall Trimble, chief executive of the Energy Contract Company, a consultancy. "It would be much worse than before."

Several factors have combined to make this winter's gas supply one of the tightest in living memory. Production from the North Sea is declining faster than many people had expected, but gas demand keeps rising. A third of Britain's electricity is generated using gas, and Britons use it far more than people in other countries to heat their homes.

As a result, Britain last year turned from a net exporter of gas into a net importer. But multi-billion pound infrastructure projects that will bring foreign gas to these shores will not be ready for two years or more.

Britain has enough gas to meet demand in an average winter. If it is much colder, however, National Grid, the pipeline operator, has said it would probably have to cut supplies to heavy industrial users and gas-fired power stations.

With prices surging, it is hoped some industrial users would voluntarily close their factories, preferring to sell the gas back into the market. Equally, some gas-fired power stations may temporarily be able switch to alternatives such as fuel oil.

But if the cold weather persisted, Britain would have few spare supplies to draw on. Heavy users may have to close until the cold weather ends.

Part of the problem is that Britain has very few facilities like Rough to draw on, which accounts for three-quarter of the country's total storage capacity. France has about 90 days of its average gas demand in storage, Germany 76 days and Italy 60. By comparison, the UK has only 13 days of gas in storage, or seven days of peak demand.

Continental European countries have always been highly dependent on foreign imports of natural gas, and so have worried about supply interruptions. By contrast, Britain had large amounts of readily available North Sea gas, which it was able to produce in higher or lower quantities to match variations in demand.

But as Britain's gas supplies have fallen, so has its capacity to vary its production. According to Wood Mackenzie, the oil consultancy, UK "swing production" has fallen from about 150 per cent in the middle of the last decade to about 125 per cent today.

Imported gas does not have the same flexibility as the UK production it is replacing. Unlike some of the old gas fields, new pipelines are not built to provide double the capacity that is needed for most of the year, says Frank Harris, gas analyst at Wood Mackenzie. Several terminals being built to receive shipments of liquefied natural gas are also unlikely to have any significant spare capacity during periods of peak demand, he says.

"Our traditional flexibility has been steadily declining for years," says Mr Trimble. "We are starting to look a lot more like Europe but without the storage capacity."

There is certainly money to be made in gas storage. Taking advantage of seasonal swings, utilities and energy traders like to buy gas when its cheap in the summer, store it, and sell it in winter, when prices are high. In the past three years, the spread between summer and winter gas prices has ballooned from as little as 6.5p a therm to more than 45p.

That has boosted the value of storage. Before Centrica bought Rough in 2002, the price of a standard bundled unit of storage at the facility was about 10p. The average price of storage this year was 37p a unit, while the price quoted for next year is more than 70p, at times rising to more than 1.

Centrica Storage, a unit of British Gas's owner Centrica, made almost as much profits in the first half of this year as it did for the whole of 2004. Next year also promises to be a bumper year for the company.

Other companies are keen to enter the storage market, although nothing on the scale of Rough, which was converted in 1983 with taxpayer money. However, they face big hurdles.

Star Energy, which owns onshore oil and gas fields in the UK, wants to turn some of them into gas storage sites. It expects to open a 65m facility at Humbly Grove in Hampshire with a capacity of 10bn cubic feet of gas by the beginning of next month.

The company wants to build a further 80bn cubic feet of storage in the next five years but many of its projects have been stalled by local opposition. Star's storage facility at Welton, Lincolnshire, could have started by 2007 but its planning process has stretched on for nearly two years.

"It's like one of those bad dreams where you just can't catch that bus that's moving away," says Roland Wessel, Star's chief executive.

Canatxx, a privately-held company, also has a storage project bogged down in a long planning inquiry. Local residents say its plan to fill a salt cavern in Lancashire with gas is unsafe.

"There is a tremendous amount of local opposition," says Ian Mulroy, a resident who is spearheading the resistance. "Gas migration, followed by explosion, is the main fear."

Canatxx and other industry voices insist that underground storage is safe and says the government must act urgently if the UK is to get the storage it needs.

"There are companies willing and able to build gas storage facilities," says Adrian Fernando, head of business development at Star Energy. "We'd like to see a more streamlined planning and consenting process so we can do that."