http://www.falklands-oil.com/

http://www.rockhopperexploration.co.uk

http://www.argosresources.com/




Rockhopper was established in 2004 with a strategy to invest in and undertake an offshore oil exploration programme in the North Falkland Basin. It was floated on AIM in August 2005. Rockhopper was the first company to make a commercial oil discovery in the Falklands. Today Rockhopper is the largest acreage holder in the North Falkland Basin, with interests in the Greater Mediterranean region.

http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/MarketsAndSectors/Sectors/article/20100512/38c9bec2-5db6-11df-bbd0-00144f2af8e8/Falklands-explorers-fly-again.jsp

Falklands explorers fly again
Created:12 May 2010Written by:Martin Li

There's oil in the Falklands. The success of the Sea Lion exploration well sent shares in Rockhopper Exploration up over six-fold from 37p to 230p in just a few days, confirming the keen investor interest in this faraway drilling campaign.

Sentiment had been dented following the failure of the first well in the North Falkland basin, drilled in February by Desire Petroleum. Such has been the level of investment fervour that shares in all four Falklands explorers tumbled on Desire's drill result, even Falkland Oil & Gas (FOGL) and Borders & Southern, which are exploring completely unrelated basins to Desire.

Rockhopper's well encountered 53m of net pay, or oil-bearing reservoirs, spread over several intervals. Crucially, the reservoir quality looks good, which means the oil should flow well. It's hard enough producing oil from such a remote location as the Falklands without also having to work hard stimulating any oil to flow to the surface. In addition, the well has not yet encountered the oil/water contact marking the reservoir boundary, which means the find could be larger than currently indicated.

Rockhopper hasn't yet commented on possible oil volumes although analysts have been busily working through the potential upside. Broker Oriel Securities interpreted Rockhopper's find as potentially larger than the pre-drill resource estimate of 170m barrels. It concludes that while further appraisal drilling will be needed to confirm volumes, such a find, if commercial, could be worth more than 600p a share, which hints at considerable further upside on top of the gains to date.

Attention now switches to the undrilled South Falkland basin, where FOGL and partner BHP Billiton have next use of the shared rig. Prospects in the south are typically much larger than those in the north, but mostly lie in deeper water than the Ocean Guardian can drill. FOGL has one relatively shallow prospect, Toroa, that it will drill with the Ocean Guardian, although it continues to search for a drillship or deepwater rig capable of carrying out the main exploration programme, which FOGL still hopes to begin before the year-end. Drilling of Toroa should start in late May.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article7124677.ece

"There was another day and rumours of another positive statement from Rockhopper Exploration, the British company that has struck oil off the Falkland Islands. While the best guess thus far on how much oil is present there is 170 million barrels, traders speculated that Rockhopper was poised to upgrade that estimate to up to 400 million barrels. Rockhopper shares, 37p a week ago, jumped another 25p to 220p."

Still cheap...1500p on the cards.

That's about 2.6 billion for the company.

That does not matter if Sea Lion contains 400M barrels of recoverable oil.

If it does 1500p a share is nothing much.

Why not go all the way and say 2000p Cairn energy level..........bollocks

Depends on the quality of the oil, the oil price and the extraction cost/barrel.

He who hesitates is lost.

I am....looking toppy.....could be that the remaining tests are priced in....

I don't agree. The lab tests are crucial in the short term, imo, as good or bad results will have an immediate impact on the sp. This is the lull before the news.

Which means ? up or down ?...

even i am pretty optimistic about this one, though i don't buy into some these mega-buck sp valuations that some of you are throwing about like confetti

Ah, if only I knew the answer to that! I am holding at the moment & anticipating good news, which I think is more likely than bad, but no guarantees.

Sam Moody sounds pretty confident that the lab tests will confirm his earlier assessment of this discovery, whether this is a giant discovery or just a small find remains the intriguing question.

More likely medium size....you need a full test.....

I feel you are probably a 'glass half empty' sort of person, rf??? ;o)

rf of course you need a full test to confirm whether this is a major discovery and no doubt next week we will learn if this test is to be carried out immediately or at a later date after ernest has been drilled, just be patient meantime.

hali - what's your gut feel?

cynic having climbed the mountain with VOG and then crashed and burned we are not holding our breathe, however still holding having top sliced to cover original cost we are now in for free.

Mirabaud note out today:
"The announcement of a significant oil discovery in the North Falkland Basin has sent the share price of Rockhopper soaring, and dished up platefuls of humble pie for the multitude of industry scoffers. With Rockhopper now the second largest stock in the AIM oil and gas index by market capitalisation, it is time to assess the potential value of the discovery and to see if the market euphoria is overdone. In our view Sea Lion is a significant discovery which is likely to prove commercial, but there remains significant appraisal risk as well as dilution risk as the company seeks to de-risk the find. To reflect this we are raising our target price for Rockhopper to 210p/shr share but maintaining our NEUTRAL recommendation. Desires share price has also benefited from the discovery even though it has no direct interest. It does have a lookalike prospect to the south which has been slightly de-risked and so we are raising our target price to 60p/shr, but downgrading our recommendation to SELL in the light of the recent market move."