From the latest company's drilling update....17 Feb

http://moneyam.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200402170700084897V.html

Can anyone with mining knowledge explain these terms....

What does sidetracking mean? Approx how ong will that take?
Approx. how long will it take to correct a deviated section?
Is 'crude oil in shale samples' a good indication that there is oil?
Is 'Gas-bearing porous sands being logged' a good indication that there is gas?
Basically what does logging involve ?

Any views re AEX potential??

Regards
Stephen

Tanker Hi,

Thats if it hasn't already 'taken off' .... into Hurricane Rita ....

Cheers,
PM

Rita not looking quite as serious as she was last night. Downgraded to cat4 now.

Passing over some cooler sea but closing on another 'hot' patch shortly which may give another boost. Some cooler water nearer the coast though so by landfall may be cat4 or even cat3. Did expect worse but these things can be a bit unpredictable.

The predicted path is now close to but just East of Galveston.........yesterdays was West which would have been worse. East will give a lower wind speed for that area.

All in all looking less serious but still early days and may yet score a direct hit on Galveston and Houston.......looks like being very close either way.

Tomorrow's data will give a much more accurate forecast.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=1150674

Looks unclear. I went long in US Crude yesterday afternoon but down 70 cents since then and not sure on how Rita is gonna hit. Even if they have prepared well and it reaches the coast as a CAT 3, the industry could be trashed.

I agree Stringy, its gonna be later on today until things look a bit clearer....

Tense times. Cant believe the season this year....real hectic.

Rita heading slightly north-west now, perhaps hitting close to Louisiana border. Currently expecting to hit at Force 4.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/085714.shtml?prob

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/085714.shtml?prob

Is the World Running Out of Oil?

by Joseph Nocera from the New York Times, Sept 10.

We're halfway through the hydrocarbon era," my old friend T. Boone Pickens has been saying for the last couple of years. You may remember Mr. Pickens as the most famous corporate raider of the 1980's, but he has spent his life in the oil patch. A geologist by training, Mr. Pickens founded Mesa Petroleum at the age of 26 and ran it for the next 40 years. Now, at 77, he works the oil patch in a different way, running a pair of energy-oriented hedge funds in Dallas.

A folksy line like Mr. Pickens's - it sticks with you. But I hadn't realized until recently that it also meant Mr. Pickens had taken sides in a surprisingly heated debate. He subscribes to what is being called the peak oil hypothesis, which holds that there simply isn't very much new oil left to be found in the world. As a result, we are currently in the gradual process of draining the more than a trillion barrels of proven reserves that are still in the ground. And when it's gone, it's gone.

The best-known "peakist" these days is Matthew R. Simmons, who runs Simmons & Company, an investment bank and consulting firm in Houston specializing in energy companies. Mr. Simmons's essential belief, he told me recently, is that energy demand is about to exceed supply significantly. And that was pre-Hurricane Katrina - before the storm damaged refineries, pipelines and offshore rigs all along the Gulf Coast. "I would argue that we are in a serious energy crisis," Mr. Simmons added. He forecasts increasing oil prices.

There is a second group of forecasters, though, who argue with equal vehemence that the world is not in an energy crisis and it probably won't face one for a very long time. The best-known proponent of this view is Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power," a history of oil that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, and the founder of a rather sizable consulting firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

"This is the fifth time that we're supposedly running out of oil," Mr. Yergin said. But, he added, each time new technologies made it possible for oil companies to find new sources of oil and extract new oil from old sources. His firm released a survey a few months ago that says from 2004 to 2010, world oil supplies will have increased by as much as 16 million barrels a day, "outstripping the likely demand increase." Most of those who hold this view say that oil prices will eventually drift down.

DOES it surprise you to learn that when it comes to one of most vital resources known to man, there could be such an incredible divergence of opinion? It sure surprised me. Even some of the oil majors are on opposites sides, with Chevron taking the peakist view, and Exxon Mobil more aligned with the Yergin camp.

There are three reasons for this lack of consensus. First, because oil is buried underground, it is hard to measure. So basic "facts" - like how much oil remains, and how much can be ultimately extracted - are as much the product of guesswork as science. Second, the world of oil can be shrouded in secrecy. As an article in The New York Times Magazine recently pointed out, Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer of them all, won't even allow its reserve and production data to be audited.

Finally, though, the fact that this enormous divergence has developed speaks volumes about the very different way each camp views the world. "It's the geologists on one side and the economists on the other side," was the way the energy analyst Seth Kleinman of PFC Energy in Washington put it recently. That's an overgeneralization, of course, but one that contains plenty of truth.

The two sides do agree on one thing: the recent run-up in oil prices, which began well before Hurricane Katrina, has come about because demand for oil has caught up with supply. The enormous burst of economic activity in China, the generally good economic conditions in the United States and the rest of the West - these and other factors have led to a surge in oil demand.

"The world produces about 85 million barrels a day," Mr. Pickens said. "That's where demand is now, too. And I've seen forecasts that demand is going to be higher than that by the end of the year."

What's more, Mr. Pickens added, pre-Hurricane Katrina refining capacity was already at the breaking point, which is another point that is pretty unarguable. "Refineries were operating at 96 percent," he said. "You can't operate anything at 96 percent. It'll start breaking down."

That last paragraph, though, encapsulates the world view of the peakists: all the easy deals have been done. One reason refineries are operating at such high capacity is that no new refineries have been built in the United States for some 30 years, which Mr. Simmons believes can be attributed to the shortsightedness of the industry. "My theory was that if the industry didn't expand like crazy the U.S. would find itself running short of energy." It didn't, and we are.

Even more troubling, the pessimists believe that it is going to be increasingly difficult to replace the oil that we're now using up. "Let me give you a number that is pretty shocking when you hear it," Mr. Pickens said. "The world uses 30 billion barrels of oil a year. There is no way we're replacing 30 billion barrels of oil. Just a million barrels a day is 1,000 wells producing 1,000 barrels. That's big."

How do the economists counter the geologists' arguments? They don't deny that it is hard to find new oil. But they believe that whenever tight supplies push up the price of oil, the rising price itself becomes our salvation. For one thing, higher prices temper demand as people begin to change their energy habits. (Mr. Pickens believes this as well.) Surprisingly, this has not yet happened even as gasoline at the pump has more than doubled in the last year or so. But inevitably, there will come a point when it will change behaviors.

Secondly, they believe higher prices spur innovation. Oil that couldn't be extracted profitably at, say, $15 a barrel, can be enormously profitable at $60 a barrel. In the view of Mr. Yergin and his allies, in fact, this is exactly what has been happening. They point to new oil that is coming out of the Caspian Sea, deepwater drilling in Brazil and the oil sands in northern Alberta as examples. The 16 million barrels a day of new oil Mr. Yergin expects to see by 2010, he told me, "is predicated on $25-to-$30 oil." If oil stays higher than that, then there will be even more investment, and not just in ways to extract oil, but in new refineries and pipelines and other infrastructure.

If you mention this theory to a hard-core peakist like Mr. Simmons, you'd better be ready for an earful. "These economists are so smug," he said derisively. "All they talk about is the magic of the free market. They don't seem to understand that this is incredibly capital intensive."

He pointed to those Canadian oil sands - where, he said, Shell Canada recently announced it was going to raise its investment to $7.3 billion from $4 billion to produce an additional 100,000 barrels a day. "Just think about that; $3.3 billion for just 100,000 barrels," he said. "Doesn't that tell you something?"

Of course the economists can be just as dismissive of the peakists. "I've gone from disagreeing with them to debunking them," scoffed the energy consultant Michael C. Lynch. "I believe the world will expand the reserve base. If you put a road in the middle of the jungle, that can wind up expanding the resource base."

"By most estimates," he added, "total global resources is eight trillion barrels of oil. They are saying only a small percentage of that is recoverable, and you can't do anything about it. We are saying the amount that is recoverable expands over time."

I wish I had the confidence to make my own forecast, but in this case, I don't. What I do know - what we all know - is that oil is a finite resource. Surely, the peakists are right about that. What I also know is historically, the economists have generally been right about how the price of oil has wound up fixing the problem.

As Gary N. Ross, the chief executive of the PIRA Energy Group, puts it: "Price is the only thing that matters. The new threshold of price will do its magic on the supply-and-demand side."

After all, it always has before. And it will again. Until it doesn't.

Published: Saturday, September 24, 2005
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) Hurricane Rita steamed toward refinery towns along the Texas-Louisiana coast with 120 mph winds Friday, creating havoc even before it arrived: Levee breaks caused new flooding in New Orleans, and as many as 24 people were killed when a bus carrying nursing-home evacuees caught fire in a traffic jam.

Rita weakened during the day into a Category 3 hurricane after raging as a Category 5, 175-mph monster earlier in the week. But it was still a highly dangerous storm.

The hurricane was expected to come ashore early Saturday on a course that could spare Houston and Galveston but slam the oil refining towns of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., with a 20-foot storm surge, towering waves and up to 25 inches of rain.

"That's where people are going to die," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. "All these areas are just going to get absolutely clobbered by the storm surge."

Late Friday, southwestern Louisiana was soaked by driving rain and coastal flooding. Sugarcane fields, ranches and marshlands were already under water at dusk in coastal Cameron Parish.

The sparsely populated region was almost completely evacuated, but authorities rushed to the aid of a man who had decided to ride out the storm in a house near the Gulf of Mexico after one of man's friends called for help.

They were turned back by flooded roads.

"He's going to take the full brunt of this hurricane coming in," sheriff's Capt. James Hines said.

Police rescued four people huddled under an overhang outside the locked downtown civic center. "There's probably going to be 4 feet of water where they are now," Hines said. "So they need to get out of there."

Empty coastal highways and small towns were blasted with wind-swept rain. A metal hurricane evacuation route sign along one road wagged violently in the wind, and clumps of cattle huddled in fields.

Steve Rinard, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Lake Charles, said he could not keep count of the tornado warnings across southern Louisiana. "They were just popping up like firecrackers," he said.

Rita threatened dozens of shuttered refineries and chemical plants along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast that represent a quarter of the nation's oil refining capacity. Environmentalists warned of the risk of a toxic spill, and business analysts said Rita could cause already-high gasoline prices to rise to as much as $4 a gallon.

In the storm's cross-hairs were the marshy towns along the Louisiana line: Port Arthur, a city of about 58,000 where the main industries include oil, shrimping and crawfishing; and Beaumont, a port city of about 114,000 that was the birthplace of the modern oil industry. It was in Beaumont that the Spindletop well erupted in a 100-foot gusher in 1901 and gave rise to such giants as Gulf, Humble and Texaco.

Kandy Huffman had no way to leave, and she pushed her broken-down car down the street to her home with plans to ride out the storm in an otherwise-deserted Port Arthur, where the streetlights were turned off and stores were boarded up.

"This isn't my first rodeo. All you can do is pray for best," she said as a driving rain started to fall. "We're surrounded by the people we love. Even if we have to all cuddle up, we know where everybody is."

In New Orleans, which had just drained nearly all the putrid floodwaters from Katrina, Rita's wind and rain sent water gushing through a patched levee along the Industrial Canal and into the already-devastated Lower Ninth Ward and parts of neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

Published: Saturday, September 24, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) Wall Street rallied to finish mostly higher Friday, capping off the week with two days of gains as Hurricane Rita lost strength and raised hopes that its impact on key Gulf Coast refineries wouldn't be as bad as initially feared.

With Rita headed for the Texas coastline the heart of U.S. oil production investors had braced for a repeat of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina last month. By Friday afternoon, however, Rita weakened two notches to a Category 3 hurricane, sending oil prices down more than $2 and easing the mood on Wall Street.

But trading volume remained light while traders kept an eye on the storm, projected to strike the Texas-Louisiana border early Saturday morning. And despite a drop in energy prices, the Dow Jones industrial average posted a small loss Friday.

At the close of trading, the Dow dropped 2.46, or 0.02 percent, to 10,419.59, after sliding as much as 49.75 in early activity.

The broader stock indicators moved higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.67, or 0.06 percent, to 1,215.29, and the Nasdaq gained 6.06, or 0.29 percent, to 2,116.84.

Bonds finished lower, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising to 4.25 percent from 4.18 percent Thursday

Rita downgraded to Category 1
Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:47 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hurricane Rita was downgraded to a Category 1 storm on Saturday with maximum sustained winds of about 75 mph (120 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) advisory.

The storm's slow movement was expected to generate very heavy rains over the next few days, with rainfall totals of 10 to 15 inches possible across eastern Texas...western Louisiana and southern Arkansas, the center said.

TANZANIA FARM OUT RNS:

Aminex PLC, the oil and gas company listed on the London and Irish Stock Exchanges, today announces that it has completed an agreement with East Coast Energy Ltd. of Canada and its wholly-owned Tanzanian subsidiary Pan-African Tanzania Ltd. ('PAT') to farm out part of the Nyuni Production Sharing Agreement 'PSA') offshore Tanzania, subject to formal approval of the Tanzanian
authorities.

http://moneyextra.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200509260700127135R.html

Shame, did it need farming out?

With a global shortage of oil rigs perhaps this is the way forward. PAT must think there's good reason to join up (as they own the land next door) and Aminex would be able to "share" their pipeline in the event of success. Perhaps not so bad!

Hi All,

The farm out also allows Aminex to concentrate resources on other areas of Tanzania, and of course, DPRK.

Cheers,
PM

I take it you see this as quite positive then Paul.

Nice tick up today!

Well done on your YOO selling. I 'bought' the story and stayed in too long. Made up for most of it today though by piling it into GFM at 8am today.

PS let me know if you decide to start selling off AEX? -Planning on being here for a while yet myself....news depending of course.

Stringy Hi,

I think AEX is another long term winner that could come good very quickly, I hope we will find out soon the plans for Seismic and Drilling of Tanz and DPRK, then we will have some idea of how long term we are looking.

Not worried about this one, in at 7.875p so I could sell at 16p if there was no near term drilling, causing a drop in the SP, and I would definately get back in nearer to the drilling time.

Cheers,
PM

Aminex PLC
28 September 2005


Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2005

Aminex, the oil and gas company listed on the London and Irish Stock Exchanges,
today announces its interim results for the half year ended 30 June 2005


Highlights

Production Sharing Agreement signed with North Korea

Placing and Open Offer of new shares raises net US$8 million

Satisfactory settlement reached with Petrom SA over Nyuni cost dispute

Farm-out agreement over part of Nyuni acreage signed with East Coast
Energy Ltd

Net loss for period of US$1.9 million (2004: loss US$1.15 million)


OVERVIEW

During the period under review Aminex negotiated and finalised a form of model
Production Sharing Agreement ('PSA') with the authorities in North Korea as part
of its work obligation under the 2004 Petroleum Agreement with the government of
that country and applied for formal exploration licences using the model PSA
negotiated. In Tanzania geological and geophysical work continued on the Nyuni
licence in preparation for exploration activity due to be carried out during the
three year second period of the Nyuni-East Songo-Songo PSA which commenced in
November 2004. A satisfactory conclusion was negotiated with Petrom SA over a
long-running farm-out dispute in connection with the Nyuni-1 well. Also in the
period Aminex drilled the first of four development wells on the South Weslaco
Field and worked over the Sunny Ernst-1 well on the Alta Loma property, both in
Texas.

Since the end of the period a placing and open offer to shareholders was
successfully completed and the proceeds are being used to progress work on the
Group's existing projects as well as to advance other opportunities. In August
the Group achieved the unusual step of signing a PSA with the North Korean
authorities covering virtually the entire country and its offshore waters, east
and west. Aminex took the view from the outset that the country's geological
potential outweighed the risk that the nuclear dispute would escalate out of
control. The recent news from Beijing of the preliminary success of the long
running and controversial six-party negotiations appears to vindicate this
position. Earlier this month, the Group also announced that it had concluded a
farm-out agreement for part of the Nyuni East Songo-Songo PSA in Tanzania with
East Coast Energy of Canada ('East Coast'). A seismic survey is due to commence
over Nyuni in October as part of this farm-out agreement and Aminex will take
advantage of the seismic vessel's presence in the area to shoot new seismic over
the part of Nyuni which has not been farmed out to East Coast. This will
include the prospect which was drilled in 2003-4 as the Nyuni-1 well and which
found evidence of Jurassically sourced crude oil in East Africa for the first
time.

A number of other opportunities are currently under review and some are at an
advanced stage of negotiation.


FINANCIAL REVIEW

The results for the six-month period ended 30 June 2005 have been prepared in
accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards ('IFRS'). The
results and cash flow statements for the six-month period ended 30 June 2004 and
the twelve-month period ended 31 December 2004 as well as the balance sheets at
1 January 2004, 30 June 2004 and 31 December 2004 have been restated from the
originally adopted Irish GAAP to conform with IFRS. Detailed movements between
the original Irish GAAP figures and the IFRS figures are set out in the
accompanying notes to the financial statements.

Gross profit amounted to $0.4 million for the first six months of 2005 ($0.98
million for the first six months of 2004). The 2004 figure included the
operating profit of the Vinton Dome property which was sold in December 2004 and
which accounted for 70% of the Group's oil production in the period. Following a
successful recompletion, the Alta Loma gas well was brought back on production
towards the end of June 2005 having been out of commission since September 2004.
As a consequence, gas production in the USA during the period has been
significantly reduced. The Group benefited from higher oil and gas prices
during the current period achieving $46.03 per barrel of oil, an increase of
$10.85 over the comparative period, and $7.03 per mcf of gas, an increase of
$0.59 per mcf over the comparative period. After charging administrative
expenses of $2.23 million (2004: $2.13 million net of an offsetting profit of
$143,000 on the sale of a Corsair drilling rig) and financing costs of $87,000
(2004: $Nil), the net loss for the period amounted to $1.92 million (2004: loss
$1.15 million).

Exploration and evaluation expenditures of $0.12 million during the current
period related to the Group's assets in North Korea and Tanzania. A provision of
$2.3 million relating to the Group's future decommissioning liability in the USA
has been set up at the beginning of the period with the associated cost included
in additions to property, plant and equipment. The high level of current trade
and other receivables at the period end includes the proceeds receivable from
the Placing and Open Offer made to shareholders during June 2005 and which was
paid in early July.


TANZANIA

The second period of the Nyuni East Songo-Songo permit commenced in November
2004 and involves a two well drilling commitment. This PSA was the first in
Tanzania ever to have been extended into a second period. The Nyuni prospect
itself, drilled in 2003/4, fully justifies further work and there are at least
four other untested prospects over which seismic will be shot in the fourth
quarter of this year. Approximately 25% of the PSA has been farmed out to East
Coast which is the operator of the neighbouring Songo-Songo producing gas field
and the farm-out area adjoins the Songo-Songo field. Songo-Songo has now been
on successful commercial production for over a year and it is an opportune time
to appraise the possibility of its extension into Aminex's acreage. A new
commercial gas well drilled under the farm-out agreement could be rapidly hooked
up to Songo-Songo's existing production facilities and would fulfil one well out
of the two well PSA obligation. Nyuni-1, a completely separate structure, was
spudded before Songo-Songo came on stream. The East Coast farm-out remains
subject to formal Tanzanian government approval.

Elsewhere in Tanzania, Aminex is now close, it believes, to finalising a PSA for
the southern 12,000 square kilometre Ruvuma area currently held under a
technical evaluation agreement.

Tanzania and the East African margin generally are attracting increasing
industry interest. Since our last report to shareholders Mozambique has
launched a licensing round, Exxon-Mobil has farmed into large tracts offshore
Madagascar, while Tanzania itself has an ongoing deep water licensing round.
Aminex believes the timing of its entry into Tanzania was good and looks forward
to making further progress on its large acreage portfolio.


NORTH KOREA

Since signing a Petroleum Agreement last year Aminex moved quickly to establish
a model PSA, applied for acreage and has now signed a comprehensive PSA. During
this time an extensive data evaluation exercise has taken place including
numerous visits by Aminex specialists to Pyongyang where good working relations
have been established with Korean specialists. On 4 August Aminex and its
wholly-owned subsidiary Korex Ltd. entered into a PSA with the North Korean
authorities covering all the prospective basins in the West Sea, onshore North
Korea and in the East Sea. This represents major progress since the original
Petroleum Agreement was signed in 2004. The PSA is for a nine year period
divided into three sub-periods, in the first of which Aminex will acquire new
seismic and either drill a new well or re-enter an existing West Sea discovery
well.


USA

Following an extended recompletion, the Alta Loma Sunny Ernst #1 well resumed
production during June having been shut in since the previous September. The
first of a four well development programme at South Weslaco was drilled during
the period and is currently being tied-in for production. The second well was
spudded on 19 September and is drilling ahead at the date of this report. Two
further wells are planned during the remainder of 2005. The advantage of high
prices has been offset to some extent by the difficulty in sourcing drilling
rigs during a period of excessive demand as a result of which the South Weslaco
project has not progressed as quickly as planned and no production from new
drilling is included in the current financial results. During the period, a
decision was made to plug and abandon the Sabine Lake well which ceased
production at the beginning of this year. Oil production at the Somerset field
has been maintained and a start made on a programme for plugging and abandoning
redundant wells and facilities. As a consequence of the sale of the Vinton
properties at the end of 2004 and also the delayed commencement of gas from the
Alta Loma well, production in the USA declined below that of the prior period.
Major efforts are under way to restore the production levels


MOCOH JOINT VENTURE

Aminex has been co-operating for some time with Mocoh SA, a petroleum trading
company with existing operations in a number of African countries, to pool
resources in the search for new upstream opportunities where a combination of
Mocoh's established presence and Aminex's technical capabilities can be brought
to bear for mutual advantage. This co-operation has now been formalised to
cover three countries; Sudan, Madagascar and Congo-Brazzaville. Any licence
award will be shared on a 50-50- basis by Mocoh and Aminex, each party paying
for its own share of licence expenditures. A joint company known as Amicoh has
now been formed and co-operation may be extended to include other countries in
the region.


LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS

Aminex continues to work with Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. of Australia ('LNGL')
to identify suitable opportunities for co-operation in the development of
stranded gas fields suitable for small scale LNG operations.


EGYPT

As previously announced to shareholders, Aminex participates in the share
capital of Red Sea Petroleum Ltd which made an unsuccessful application for new
acreage in 2004 in very competitive circumstances. Red Sea is currently actively
pursuing other opportunities in Egypt and has recently applied for further
acreage.


PROSPECTS

The Aminex Group has now established a strong exploration portfolio at a time of
high oil and gas prices and unprecedented international exploration activity by
large and small oil companies alike. The company is working hard to build on
this position.


28 September 2005

Clip from oilbarrel.com


Aminex, Dana And Premier Oil Post First-Half Results And Africa Is The Common Theme
After something of a hiatus in the wake of the disappointing Nyuni-1 wildcat of 2003/4, Aminex plc is again making progress with its exploration project in Tanzania. The company, which last week announced a first half turnover of US$1.2 million and net losses of US$1.92 million, has farmed down part of its PSA there to East Coast Energy of Canada, which operates the neighbouring Songo Songo producing gas field.

The farm-out covers the acreage that abuts Songo Songo and will allow the partners to explore for an extension of the gas deposit: a successful well here could be quickly hooked up to the existing Songo Songo facilities.

The farm-out will also enable Aminex to revive exploration activity on the rest of the licence, piggy-backing on East Coasts hire of a seismic boat to take another look at the Nyuni prospect plus four other untested prospects on the property. This seismic work is due to get underway later this month.

The past year has also seen progress on Aminexs pioneering investments in North Korea, where it has signed up to explore large tracts of frontier territory, both on and offshore. The company is keen to add to its exploration portfolio and has formed a 50/50 joint venture exploration company with petroleum trading firm Mocoh SA. The two companies are scanning opportunities in Sudan, Madagascar and Congo-Brazzaville.

paul . our do you see this going.in the short term. thanks.