profits ahead of last years.the company has 80% interest in a joint venture with china national petroleum corp(cnpc).market makers bought a lot of stock on friday followed by big buys on monday.profit taking on tues am then buyers back in pm.any views?

I don't think so...still heading southwards.

Informative post from Mike on another site;


Hi all,

Was in Hong Kong a couple of days ago and managed to organise a short meeting with a reasonably senior representative of FTO.

Although he was obviously pretty cagey about giving me any price sensitive stuff, I managed to find some useful information.

Firstly the investment in the natural gas business is set to continue both in the short and long term, which for me as a long-term holder is good news, but for those hoping for a pause to allow the pe to fall in the short term maybe not so good, obviously depends on your personal outlook. He reiterated that the gas business is restricted at the moment to certain parts of the country by the lack of supply, but that this would change over time as the infrastructure is developed by the big oil companies together with the government, and that FTO, because of their good relationship with the oil companies and their track record would be able to take advantage when the infrastructure is ready. From what I have seen and read so far in China the Chinese are really rushing to embrace NG, and given the speed that projects develop over here once the money and the will is there, I would imagine the infrastructure will be provided relatively quickly (just a personal opinion).

Also told me that in the cities that FTO already supplies NG to the present take up is only a small proportion of the population, he cited Qufu, where at present there are 50-70,000 NG users, in a city of 500,000. I guess not all of the population will take up NG as their source of fuel, but seems to me there is a lot of potential for new users (given what was written in the report about NG being a cheaper option than competing fuels) without too much investment there, especially as he told me the reticulation systems are now operational for NG (which I personally hadnt picked up from the reports).

Regarding the PetroChina FTO co-branded gas stations in Beijing it turns out the company owns the third largest NG gas station in Beijing, which he said as a foreign company they like to keep a little quiet about. Now, Beijing has a target that 90% of their buses and 70% of taxis should run on NG by 2007, as part of their plan for a Green Beijing for the Olympics in 08. This target was set in 98 (if I remember correctly) so I am not sure how close the city now is to reaching the target, and therefore not sure how much room for expansion in demand for NG for transport there now is as a result. However, when asked he seemed quite confident that the gas stations were well positioned to benefit from any expansion (remember FTO owns one of the largest NG production plants in the Beijing area). Also, although I have no experience of transport in Beijing, if the system is anything like other Chinese cities such as Guangzhou or Shenzhen, about half of the traffic seems to be buses or taxis, and so there should be quite a substantial market for the gas stations, especially as we get closer to 2008 (again IMO). Also, as he told me, the NG production plants in the Beijing area are used not just for FTO distribution assets, the company also trucks gas from the plants to manufacturers and other businesses who require NG. So again as the Olympics beckons, and businesses have to meet stricter standards for emissions, there should hopefully be an increase in demand for FTOs gas.

I was also told that the company is not looking to leave the aviation fuel industry (despite the speculative BP rumours I have read occasionally on this bb), and that the aborted deal with CAO was more an attempt to gain a slice of a bigger cake in the industry than to take cash and shares to finance expansion in the NG side of the business. Given the results we got from Bluesky this is for me good news. Also it seems that the second terminal at Guangzhou airport (which was planned for from the beginning) has been speeded up due to bigger than expected demand. Having seen the airport first hand I would also like to think a second terminal may include more international flights (at present there are only two gates for international flights, and many many more for domestic), as I would assume international flights mean longer distances and so a larger fuel requirement. When I asked our FTO representative said that he expected that a second terminal would also mean an increase in cargo traffic, and that we may see expansion in this area at the airport before T2. This is because although there are alternatives for domestic passenger flights (and also a small number of internationals) at Shenzhen airport (about 2 hours drive from the Guangzhou airport), and also for international flights in Hong Kong, Guangzhou airport is much better facilitated for cargo than Shenzhen, and obviously causes less hassle to get cargo to the mainland than if it were flown into Hong Kong. I think we should remember that although the results from the new airport were good for last year, as has been said it was only operational for the last few months, so there should be much greater earnings this year, but also the traffic, both passenger and cargo, is likely to expand over the course of this year as businesses and people begin to make full use of it, and so this should be a very good earner for the future.

He also told me that any news about a second SPM, which I had heard there was a possibility of, would have to come from Sinopec (who own the Maoming refinery), and that at present there had been no noises in that direction. He also said that the possible RMB revaluation would have only a small effect on the companys earnings priced in dollars, as the revaluation would be small compared to the rate of growth of earnings the company showed over the last year (there would also obviously be a positive effect on the value of the companys assets priced in dollars).

When I asked him about the current share price, he told me the company had spoken to their brokers about the drop in price after the results, and the only reasoning they were given was that FTO stock is actually quite illiquid, and so a few people looking to sell could lead to the drop weve been seeing. He told me he personally was looking for about a 10% rise in price after the results, and was as surprised as any of us (as youd expect).

That was all the interesting definite info I managed to get out of him, however it was interesting to note that when I said theres been no new investment so far in 2005 more as a lead up to a question about anything in the pipeline he replied err we havent reported anything yet, no. I suppose that could be understood many ways, but gave me the feeling there might be something to be said soon (as I say just a feeling, dont take that as anything definite).

Hope this is useful for you, as I say it was difficult to get anything really meaty out of him.

Also a couple of interesting articles from yesterdays South China Morning Post:

Express Airways Plans Debut Flight in September
Hong Kong Express Airways says it will start flying to Guangzhous Baiyun International Airport from September after gaining rights from the government to offer scheduled air services to five mainland cities.
The Guangzhou flights, using Brazilian-made 76-seater Embraer 170 aircraft, will be followed in October by a launch of services to Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province.
Hong Kongs newest carrier, which is expected to take delivery of its first aircraft in July, was also approved for flights to Chongqing, Nanjing and Ningbo.'


'Carrier Records Boom'
'China Southern Airlines said it carried 3.63 million passengers last month, 44 percent more than a year earlier, as rising incomes encouraged more people to take holidays and business trips. Cargo volume rose 32% to 68,140 tonnes.'

P.S. China Southern Airlines looks to be by far the airlne with the biggest prescence at Guangzhou airport.

Hope that is all legible enough for you!

I was pretty positive about FTO before the meeting, as I said I'm looking at the long term, and was given no reason to change my outlook. Unfortunately dont have any money to invest, if I did though might well be looking to take advantage of the present low price.

Good luck all,

Obviously DYOR, but all honestly from the meeting or MHO,

Mike

Thanks PP--all very encouraging I was thinking of moving on but now I'm prepared to tuck away. cheers MP

more downwards ... below 6p now

a little tick up 2day

Got a positive comment from www.watshot.com today I was told !

about time too--at least this co. is making profits !

hellos traders
I was looking the 5 and 10 year charts trying to see a big picture and from the technical analysis it look ok because the sector is trading up but fto is doing a head and shoulder in a bad position, "we are in summer time" and lot of sector will need oil so the price could go up, is everything go well it could reach 7 or 8 p, OP can not control de prices any more.
we saw almost 60 dolares a barrel a few month a go , it is bad but is good for us .so we need lot of people buying and buying shares in this company.blue and blue and blue.
i dont see a 50p a share price in a short term .but could happen. i woul like to hear from you traders.
RICHARD

moneyplus are you here?

Yes--still waiting for the price to rise!! cheers MP

Ms ching li, Director bought 4,405,150 shares @ 6.75p on 15th June.

Yes a very nice director buy ! AGM this week too.

Fortune Oil PLC
20 June 2005


FORTUNE OIL PLC

NOTIFICATION OF DIRECTOR'S DEALING

Fortune Oil PLC (the 'Company') was notified today that on 15 June 2005, Ms
Ching Li, a director of the Company, purchased 4,405,150 ordinary shares of 1
pence each in the Company (representing 0.24% of the issued share capital) at a
price of 6.75 pence per share.

Ms Li now holds a total of 14,874,537 shares representing 0.81% of the issued
share capital of the Company.


20 June 2005

Enquiries:

ICIS Limited
Caroline Evans-Jones Tel: 020 7651 8688

Price increasing slighty ahead of tomorrows AGM, lets hope for good news.

Will the 50DMA prove to be a resistance point?

this has def gone dead this thread have you all bailed or died of boredom

Nothing like a couple of joint ventures would put this thread back on track.It is not the greatest company for newsflow.

Biffa18, still hanging on in here but there's not been much to comment on recently.

I'm still holding, but lack of newsflow means there's not too much to discuss.

MACD may be going positive, keep an eye on the chart above!

i see they have been playing with share price so someone could top up a few

i have held these shares for 5 years now,should have got out at 10p!!!!!