looks like its hit oil, don't know whats gonna happen, any idea's ???

I always said NOP would go to 1 shame it needed a 5/1 consolidation to get anywhere near there. I sold most of my holding last year at 75p but I still have a good free carry that I intend keeping until this one is worth 's ...whenever that might be.
Di

I agree, Di - I think a little patience with this one ought to bring rewards.

Boing!! up 7.5p this morning.

This rns was released:

>>Northern Petroleum Plc has been informed by Star Energy Group Plc, the Operator
of the Avington-3 appraisal well in which Northern Petroleum holds a 5%
interest, that drilling has reached Target Depth.

>>The well has been logged and a liner set. The Marriot 7 driling rig will now be
de-mobilised and a well test programme undertaken using the Operator's workover
rig.< <

I found the following reference to Avington on JV partner Egdon Resources' website:

>>Egdon is a 20 per cent. partner in the Avington oil discovery well made in 2003 within the PEDL070 licence. Further work carried out by Egdon and its partners shows the Avington structure as extending into the PEDL069 and PEDL110 licences where Egdon holds a one-third interest. Planning permission has been granted for two appraisal wells on the Avington Field. The Directors believe that the first of these wells will be drilled in the first half of 2005.

>>The Avington oil discovery, which the Directors believe may be similar in nature to the Stockbridge development, has the potential to be the most significant UK onshore oilfield discovered in the last twenty years. <<

Delays to the drilling planned for 2005 were due to the then operator Pentex dragging its feet. Star Energy acquired Pentex in July 2005 and has since taken matters in hand.

NOP made this announcement re Avington in 2003:

>> Immediate Release: 12th August 2003


Northern Petroleum Plc

('Northern' or the 'Company')


An important oil discovery has been made at Avington in Hampshire in which
Northern Petroleum Plc ('Northern') has a 5% interest


The well, Avington-2, on licence PEDL 070 has proven the existence of
recoverable oil through a drill string test conducted over the weekend. The test
was conducted in the 'pilot hole' and a horizontal well is now being drilled to
penetrate more of the reservoir in the productive horizon in order to expand the
drainage area for the well and increase flow rates.


The Avington-2 well in which Northern's subsidiary Northern Petroleum (GB)
Limited holds a 5% interest under a recently concluded farmout agreement, has
established 'proven' oil in a structure with mapped volumes of oil in place in
excess of 100 million barrels.


The well is operated by Pentex Oil UK Limited with Egdon Resources (U.K.)
Limited, Sterling Resources (UK) Limited and YCI Resources Limited and Northern
Petroleum (GB) Limited as partners.


Northern Petroleum also holds an option to acquire a 5% interest in the licence
PEDL 069 immediately North of PEDL 070and into which the Avington structure
extends.


Derek Musgrove, Managing Director stated:


'We could not be more pleased! This discovery is of major importance to Northern
Petroleum. It has, at the first opportunity, proved our recently developed
techniques to re-evaluate results of past exploration in the Weald Basin which
took place in the period 1982 to 1990 which we consider were unrecognised oil
discoveries. Our farm-in to Avington -2 provided the opportunity to validate our
work at only ten percent cost of the pilot hole. Avington is the first success
in the Weal Basin since the discovery of the Lidsey Oil Field in 1987.


Northern has much greater holdings in nearby areas of the Weald Basin and has
another six similar prospects on the recently awarded adjacent PEDL 125 and PEDL
126 in Hampshire and West Sussex in which we hold a 50% interest and are
Operator. These cover an area in excess of 800 square kilometres. As a result of
the success at Avington, Northern will be advancing drilling plans for those
licences.

The potential for Northern is considerable for a company of our size. If
realised it will result in an extraordinary expansion of Northern Petroleum Plc.
In summary, a great start but the real significance is that there could be so
much more to come'. <<

The Avington oil discovery got neglected due to the excitement surrounding Sandhills plus the delays by Pentex. Now that serious progress is once agin being made, this could turn out to be a useful earner for NOP. All IMO, DYOR, etc.

ST

I think we could see 1 broken soon. Can you remember what the brokers price was? 135 keeps kicking around in my head.

MS

MS - see Derwent's post #323, re the Investec NAV estimate of 211p/share.
Haven't seen any SP targets that I can think of. My guess is that until the Holland project came along, there has been very little that brokers could actually value . . .

Now at Bid Price 90p, up 9.5 today on over a million shares traded - I'm quite enjoying this!!

Mickey, I think your 1 is going to get reached very quickly indeed.

BTW, CORRECTION: Alan Hewitt posted this (post #320, end of Feb 2006) regarding the price target:

>> For those of us still sitting tight the Independant runs this today;

NORTHERN PETROLEUM (Panmure Gordon research suggests Northern is worth 145p a share) <<

That should give plenty of upside :o)

ST

I've held for a while now and was tempted to sell but resisted. It's at this point when I get my exit point all wrong. I usually sell far too early so I'm holding. I only hope I've got the balls for it.

LOL
MS

This ended up nearly 16% but what will tomorrow bring, more of the same let's hope so. But I doubt it.

MS

Mickey,

I'm no analyst or anything, but the way I see it is this:

1.) NOP has an excellent near-term project in Holland, one which should ensure that NOP covers its exploration costs in the future.

2.) The portfolio of unexplored assets is huge, the ones in which NOP has a significant %age interest being of course in Italy (The Final Results released in June 2005 give some impressive coverage of this). There are also further possibilities in the Dutch licences. Even the smaller %age interests such as Guyane boast enormous potential, should they prove to bear hydrocarbons in commerical quantities. Thus NOP's number of producing assets should grow over time, and so will cashflow.

3.) Individual oil/gas production facilities should become more profitable over the first few years as production increases.

There is therefore a certain amount of logic in holding for longer rather than selling at the first sign of profits. I quote Peter Lynch: "Selling your growing shares and keeping the ones that are going nowhere is like a gardener pulling up the flowers and watering the weeds."

Of course I don't know what your overall strategy is, but I assume you'd like to make a reasonable profit and then sell to reinvest in something else before the stock spends too much time trading sideways. A good comparison to look at might be JKX; according to my recollection this company has steadily added producing assets to turn from a tiddler into a half-billion pounder. If you had bought 3 years ago, you'd be on a 17-bagger by now! And I dare say it still has further to go. Thus the case for holding, as long as the company continues to make progress with exploration and production, is a good one. Then, when it has reached a certain level, you can start to take profits to re-invest elsewhere (or take the wife on a cruise, buy a Harley, etc, etc!).

The big risk factor with oils is of course the oil price. If that starts to dwindle then the reduction in oil companies' profits will be multiplied.

Assuming, however, that the bulls are correct and we can expect $50 oil to remain for at least the next year or two, then the strategy with any oil co that is succeeding in E&P ought to be to hold - or indeed to add if there seems to be greater growth potential.

Hope this helps. As usual, all IMHO, PDYOR cos' I'm only human too and have made my fair share of errors of judgment!!

PS I'm on at least a 3.5-bagger on the first NOP shares I bought, while the ones I bought last summer on the "Sandhills spike" are now nicely profitable. I occasionally toy with selling, but that's usually when I get out of touch with what the company is actually doing. Right now it's more a case of "I wish I had bought more in late 2005 when everyone else was dumping the stock". But I bought VOG instead, so that's all right :o)

I git some of these morning, not bad rise

We are in good company.
Standard Chartered seem very keen.
Alan

Nice one ST, a good post.

MS

Alan - Indeed.

MS - my pleasure.

And for NOP-fans who haven't seen it already: today's RNS:

>>Northern Petroleum PLC - 40 Million Project Finance Facility
Embargoed for release: 0700 on 14 March 2006 Northern Petroleum Plc ('Northern') Euro40 Million Project Finance Facility
Northern is pleased to announce that Standard Bank Plc ('Standard Bank') hasapproved the terms of a project finance facility of up to Euro40 million withNorthern's subsidiary NP Netherlands B.V ('NPN') secured over the assets ofNPN. Northern is acting as sponsor of the NPN facility and is providing asponsor guarantee. The parties are now moving towards completion of thedetailed facilities documentation.Drawdown is subject to satisfying the terms of the facility, which are normalfor this type of transaction. Up to Euro35 million will be made available to fundthe capital cost (including a contingency for cost overruns) of bringing NPN'ssix onshore oil and gas properties in the Netherlands to production. A furtherEuro5m working capital facility will be made available once NPN has reached firstproduction. The facility will have an initial duration of 60 months from firstdrawdown of funds, with repayments to commence six months after scheduled firstproduction.Upon signature of the facilities documentation, it has been agreed thatStandard Bank will be issued with three million warrants at prices based upontrade weighted prices of Northern's shares at various times within theagreement process. Standard Bank has agreed not to sell the warrants, or theshares issued upon exercise of the warrants, until the earlier of 12 monthsafter first scheduled production or 18 months from first drawing under thefacility.Chris Foss, Finance Director of Northern, stated:'We are delighted that Standard Bank, who have a proven track record inadvising and lending to the natural resources sector, has recognised thepotential of NPN's development project in the Netherlands and has agreed toprovide this facility. We look forward to working with them to bring NPN's oiland gas reserves into production as soon as possible.'Armin Eckermann, Head of Financing - Resource Banking, of Standard Bankcommented:'Looking at the oil, gas and electicity generation economics of theNetherlands, Standard Bank is more than comfortable in financing the projectand is delighted to be engaged with Northern Petroleum Plc which was able toreview and develop an oil, gas and electricity model in such a competitiveNorthern European market environment. This model can become a blueprint for the industry.' <<

Personally I like the fact that they are borrowing rather than issuing new equity: firstly it shows that in the bank's eyes the project is definitely economically viable and secondly it avoids too much dilution of the stock. If all warrants are exercised there will still only be 57 million shs in circulation.

ST

It's getting better by the hour. Might hit a bit of resistance breaking through 1 but if we do break it then 145 here we come. Are you back at work yet?

LOL
MS

Mickey,

I think you need to check today's SP graph - the good news has already happened! NOP hit 103p in early morning trade, and currently is 99.75p to buy. I agree it would be nice to see the price consolidate over 100p. The graph offers some grounds for optimism . . .

Can't believe the number of sales around 8:00 - 9:00 this morning, but I guess a lot of people put in sell orders overnight, taking profits from way back when it was at 34p or so.

Thanks for asking after my health - no, I'm not back at work yet. Have been off since June 2004, but the good news is that I have recently been diagnosed with a cortisol insufficiency and today have started taking steroids that should right the problem quite quickly.

As for work itself, I'm weighing up the possibility of leaving the office to do something else - will keep you posted!!

Consolidation above 100 would be great. Good luck ST, some steroids can cause weight gain but I'm sure you'll have checked that out. Wouldn't it be nice if NOP hit 10 and we could say "Sod the work". Oh we can dream.

LOL
MS

Clearly you have a much bigger position in NOP than I do - LOL. But NOP worth +/- 600 million? Why not, one day?

Currently at 99/101.

The price is coming off a bit now I just hope we don't lose the gains of today.

MS

Off 4p today. Precautiounary profit-taking, at a guess. I notice though that VOG and SBE have both bounced around late morning/midday. Wonder if the day-traders are switching tracks??