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.

Been buying some RKH this morning as well as DES:-)...all systems gooooo.

Well, BHP had interest in the Falklands (South) with their play with FOGL.

Given Sea Lion find (big) and potential of the RKH licenses, do you get a feeling that BHP might be running the rule over RKH now ?


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A30QC20101104

.............WHAT AVENUES CAN BHP PURSUE FOR GROWTH?

Oil and gas companies may be the best target on the acquisition front where it could avoid regulatory obstacles, as BHP is nowhere near as big as the majors in the sector. "They've run out of options in most other spots, so they've got to look at oil and gas," said Bentley.

BHP senior executives have said they are looking for oil and gas acquisitions, and even said the Potash deal would ....................

"The Board of Rockhopper Exploration plc announces that all the resolutions proposed at the General Meeting of Rockhopper held today, including the resolution to approve the Placing, were passed. The levels of proxy appointments and associated voting instructions received prior to the meeting are set out in Appendix I.

The Placing announced on 19 October 2010 remains conditional on the admission to trading on AIM of all 65,500,000 new Ordinary Shares that are the subject of the Placing and on the Placing Agreement between Rockhopper, Canaccord Genuity Limited , and Merrill Lynch International becoming unconditional in all other respects.

It is expected that the Placing will become unconditional and the admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM will become effective at 8.00 a.m. on 8th November 2010."

Headlines today, so GS reckon GKP is a sell and RKH is a buy :

Rockhopper started with buy rating at Goldman Sachs

Gulf Keystone Petroleum started with sell rating at Goldman Sachs
.

It seem's that goldman sachs has all the falkland oil stock's as buy's

Can't go by any of the broker notes because they get a lot wrong......!...it's nice if they say buy and you have the stock but just do your own thing regardless of what they say....

And all the rest are rated neutral

Goldman Sachs ratings on a few companies out today.



BUYS

Rockhopper started with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Nautical Petroleum initiated with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Northern Petroleum started with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Nighthawk Energy started with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
BowLeven initiated with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Desire Petroleum initiated with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Borders & Southern initiated with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Falkland Oil & Gas initiated with buy rating at Goldman Sachs
Tullow Oil downgraded to neutral from buy at Goldman Sachs

------------

NEUTRALS

Sterling Energy initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Valiant Petroleum initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Max Petroleum initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
EnQuest initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Tower Resources initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Dominon Petroleum started with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Cove Energy started with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Faroe Petroleum initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs
Melrose Resources initiated with neutral rating at Goldman Sachs

------------

SELLS

Gulf Keystone Petroleum started with sell rating at Goldman Sachs
Encore Oil started with sell rating at Goldman Sachs

Bor is a sell so is Fogl nothing going to happen there for a while

When you think of all this, Africa, Kurdistan etc...

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201011080822027678V


Makes you glad the Falklands is nice and safe and politically stable with the rule of law, British waters etc.. ..... !!

Snippet from the Goldman Sachs note on the oil sector, note the last bit....

41 new E&P stocks: High return potential

We initiate coverage of 41 new stocks in the
European E&P universe. We see 47% average
upside to our expanded universe of 52 stocks at
US$85/bl oil; 11 stocks have over 100% upside,
excluding liquidity adjustments. We introduce
E&P stock screens which use the enhanced
diversification our expanded universe offers to
exploit key industry themes.

Buy exploration early

Our analysis indicates that stocks rally up to 12
months into exploration catalysts, with excessive
discounts applied to longer dated drilling. We
recommend exposure to a screen of longer dated
explorers and avoiding short term exploration.


Buy cheap exposure not geological edge

High risk, binary stocks individually attract
excessive discounts. We select a screen of such
stocks to provide diversified exposure to this
theme. We also screen for high-impact
exploration, supported by core value, mitigating
the downside risk of exploration catalysts.


Buy newly opened basins

The examples of Cairn and Tullow suggest the
market undervalues the potential of newly derisked
basins in the early phases of exploration.

Rockhopper is our top pick for this theme...........

worth 60p imo.

Why not put a massive short on then.

So lets take it mitzy is short from 317p levels, and see how you get on in the months ahead ?


mitzy - 08 Nov 2010 15:42 - 3895 of 3895

worth 60p imo.

GS comment on RKH :

Source of opportunity

We initiate coverage of Rockhopper with a Buy recommendation and add the stock to our Conviction List. We believe that the Sea Lion discovery fully supports the current share price, despite applying only a 2/3 likelihood of success to the asset to account for development/commercialisation risk. We believe that the Sea Lion discovery has also partially de-risked the companys substantial acreage surrounding it in the North Falkland basin and, in view of this, regard our assumed likelihood of success of c.20% for prospects in this acreage as
conservative.

In our view the extent of this acreage (greater than 1,500 sq km in Rockhoppers PL032 and PL033 blocks in the north of the basin alone) is a significant advantage, giving the company the opportunity to drill a potentially significant number of material, partially de-risked, exploration prospects over the next few years. The potential offered by this opportunity is significant in our view: in the event of 100% success over the next three years we calculate uplift of c.165% to our valuation. We believe that appraisal drilling could also result in reserve upgrades to the Sea Lion discovery, which would add further potential upside. We give no value to the companys southern blocks where the Ernest well was plugged and abandoned earlier in 2010 but note that this offers further optionality in the investment case. The company also has a 7.5% stake in a number of Desires blocks in the basin. In light of the core value contributed by Sea Lion, we regard the exploration option on a
partially de-risked basin as especially inexpensive and attractive relative to peers.

Catalyst

We expect the key catalyst to share price performance to be exploration and appraisal drilling in the companys PL032 and PL033 blocks in the north of the basin. We believe that Sea Lion has partially de-risked the basin, meaning that Rockhopper has high visibility on a potentially transformational pipeline of lower risk drilling catalysts. We believe that further appraisal drilling on Sea Lion could help to reduce the commercial risk on the asset and potentially increase the estimated volume of reserves.

Valuation
Our 12 month SOTP-based price target is calculated using a US$85/bl oil price. We include value for Rockhoppers exploration programme with a three-year time horizon, with catalysts falling after 12 months being given a 50% discount. We assume a 12% discount rate higher than the normal 10% we use for OECD countries to reflect the higher political risk that we assume in the Falklands.


Key risks

Risks to our view and price target include a downgrade of reserves at Sea Lion, technical difficulties that hamper monetization of the asset, worse than expected drilling success in the companys acreage, a deterioration in political relations between the UK/Falklands and Argentina that impacts exploration activities, or the waxiness of the oil increasing costs to a higher level than we expect.

Only joking P.

lol weldone mitz.,.

mitzy, I know, me too :)

I think GS added Rockhopper to their "Conviction Buy" list.

Which is, as it sounds, a "strong buy" recommendation in the eyes of many.

Goldman added RKH to its "conviction buy" list - which is akin to a "strong buy" rating in the eyes of many.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/marketreport/8118405/Goldman-Sachs-shines-light-on-oil-and-gas-explorers-as-FTSE-100-wanes.html


........Amongst Goldman's picks was Rockhopper Exploration, which the broker added to its 'conviction buy' list. Analysts believe that its Sea Lion discovery, off the Falklands, fully supports the current share price, despite applying only a two-thirds likelihood of success to the asset. Rockhopper rose 5 to 318.25p on the back of Goldman's push..........

.

Well, its off and running time with Rachel North, 7.5% RKH interest.


Desire Petroleum PLC
Rachel North
RNS Number : 8228V
Desire Petroleum PLC
09 November 2010

Rachel North

Desire Petroleum plc (AIM:DES) the oil and gas company wholly focused on the North Falkland Basin, wishes to announce that both regulatory and partner approvals have been granted for Desire to drill the 14/15-2 Rachel North well.

The 14/15-1 well has been plugged and abandoned and the rig is currently waiting on weather to move to the Rachel North location.

The Rachel North well will be drilled vertically with an estimated total depth of 3,050 metres. The bottom hole location will be 1.7 kilometres from the Rachel sidetrack 14/15-1Z bottom hole location. Drilling operations are expected to last around 35 days.

It is intended that this well will evaluate the sands with oil shows encountered in the Rachel sidetrack as well as a number of possible additional sands not seen in the sidetrack.

Desire wishes to thank both the regulatory authorities and its partner Rockhopper Exploration plc for their speedy approvals to move to the new Rachel North location.

A further announcement will be made once the well has been spudded.