.

News tomorrow morning ?....possible.....even if it's just to say drilling is going well....

No, would not have thought so. If they are going to be coring (vertical while drilling) then you can understand why they said 38 days for the drill. Vertical coring will really slow the drill bit progress down.

Everyone should expect failure, its an exploration well, this is not an appraisal, its pure exploration.

Therefore, given how low the RKH price is on the actual Sea Lion discovery area, its makes for a great stock to buy and hold (real paid for shares) as you are in effect getting a free shot at 700 million recoverable barrels upside safe in the knowledge the share price is already too low on the existing discovery.

Not a stock to be holding margin positions in (spread bets and CFD) as there are people who will make the price swing and be volatile to collapse your positions, but as always, buy real stock, ignore the short term swings and relax. If it comes in then great, and if not then its on to appraising the actual Sea Lion discovery next drill later this month.

So, no flow testing on this or the next drill. Only coring is to be done on this well and the appraisal well. And then RKH will keep doing appraisals to properly define Sea Lion until later this year.


http://www.falklandnews.com/public/story.cfm?get=5879&amp%3Bsource=3

January 30, 2011
by Phyl Rendell
DIRECTOR OF MINERAL RESOURCES REPORT FOR DECEMBER 2010:


............On completion of Desires well, the rig was taken on contract by Rockhopper Exploration and well 14/10-3 (Sea Lion North) was spudded on 13 January. This is an exploration well due to it being located outside the Discovery Area that has been declared by Rockhopper. It will be followed by an appraisal well that will be drilled in the Discovery Area. Neither of these two wells will be tested while being drilled but cores will be taken from these and subsequent wells for analysis. On completion of Rockhoppers first appraisal well, the rig will revert to Desire Petroleum in order to drill further well on a location yet to be decided. Rockhopper will then continue to drill a series of additional appraisal wells in order to assess the size of the Sea Lion discovery. This is likely to take until late in the year to complete.

Rockhopper Exploration has appointed Mr Neil Booth, an oil industry specialist, to be based in Stanley during offshore drilling activities.


2). 3D Seismic Surveys: The survey vessels Polarcus Nadia and the Polarcus Asima are carrying out 3D seismic surveys for Argos Resources, Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration in the North Falkland Basin. The vessels have made several port calls for technical reasons and crew changes. There are a number of support vessels accompanying the survey that will be seen in Stanley harbour periodically. Data from these surveys will greatly increase the geological understanding of the basin for future drilling programmes.

Both vessels have Marine Mammal Observers and Passive Acoustic Monitoring Operators on board during surveying. Environmental data collected is being provided to Falklands Conservation.

1st Feb 2011 DES Presentation.

http://www.desireplc.co.uk/images/uploaded/1472131_3252464.pdf

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Given they are now coring, and might be coring 600 meters or 800 meters it might be a long time to official news.

Coring should mean progress slowed to around 50 meters per day, with a core being retrieved about once daily (50M length).

So official news might be some time away, however, as cores are brought to the surface its very easy for all to see if they have oil in them or not.

From Alphaville, FT Sector Watcher

".............DES is hosting an analyst presentation today, with the slides already available on its website. There doesn't appear to be much new news, other than confirming that the group's next well is likely to be the Ninky prospect in licence PL004 (DES 92.5%, Rockhopper 7.5%). Ninky is believed to be targeting P50 reserves of 94m barrels, which I'd estimate to be worth around 100p/share net to DES.

Given the group's disappointing track record to date in its Falklands drilling campaign (i.e. five wells drilled, zero commercial success), I'd imagine that hopes are not especially high. The well is likely to spud around March/April, i.e. after RKH's next two wells, the first of which is currently drilling. This increasingly looks like the last roll of the dice for DES, given that its 53m of remaining cash will largely be used for the drilling of Ninky and to complete a 3D seismic programme, as well as rig demob costs

If Ninky fails, the group may struggle to raise further cash for future drilling, however compelling the seismic may look.

There are much better ways to play the Falklands, primarily RKH with its Sea Lion discovery, alternatively Borders & Southern or FOGL for exposure to the large structural targets to the south and east (although drilling results from here are unlikely before next year)............"

http://www.subseaworld.com/contracts/titan-torque-secures-falklands-deal-03905.html


Titan Torque secures Falklands deal

2011.02.01 - Contracts

Oilfield equipment specialist Titan Torque Services has secured a six-figure contract to provide support services for exploration work off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

It has signed a one-year deal with well management company AGR Petroleum Services to provide torquing facilities in support of the operation of the drilling rig Ocean Guardian.

Aberdeen-based Titan Torque is to set up an operational unit in the Falklands to be the focal point of its service delivery.

The Ocean Guardian is working on behalf of Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration.

This is a very exciting development for us, illustrating our capabilities to deliver for clients on a global basis, says Titan Torque managing director Keith Gaskin.

Our market offerings are based on the principles of creating a safer working environment and increasing rig efficiency. The benefits of our service are increasingly being recognised across our industry.

Bruce Jepp, Titan Torque business development director, said: We are delighted to be supporting a highly-respected company such as AGR and look forward to building a relationship with one of the leading service providers in the global offshore industry.

The contract, valued at approximately 400,000 for the year and featuring extension options, will see Titan equipment shipped to the Falklands later this month and a company team put in place to set up the facility.

Titan will provide torquing services alongside specialist ancillary equipment and customised crane and transportation facilities.

The contract will also involve the deployment of Titans innovative drill bit protector, which facilitates onshore drilling bottomhole assembly and encases the drill bit during transportation offshore, enhancing safety and efficiency during transportation and offshore deployment.

The award is the latest in a series of contract wins for Titan, which has included a three-year deal to support the UK North Sea operations of Premier Oil.

Titans service portfolio is focused upon pre-made drilling assemblies and innovative drill bit protection equipment.

The specially designed Protector saw the company win the Wood Group Award for Innovation at the 2010 Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise.

The company has gone on to develop its Push Pull Unit. The innovation has been specially designed to insert the running tool in a process that is more controlled and measurable than existing industry techniques.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/156ede7a-2e27-11e0-8733-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1CkQwZD88

.............Rockhopper Exploration added 3.5 per cent to 368p on further speculation of an imminent drilling report from its latest prospect off the coast of the Falkland Islands.............

I think the "no testing while drilling" is deliberate to prevent any DES type leaks. Drill to TD, core along the way and then when TD is hit, then wireline it and log it, and only then will it be known what the results are.


http://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/falkland-islands-director-of-mineral-resources-gives-december-2010-report/


.........On completion of Desires well, the rig was taken on contract by Rockhopper Exploration and well 14/10-3 (Sea Lion North) was spudded on 13 January. This is an exploration well due to it being located outside the Discovery Area that has been declared by Rockhopper. It will be followed by an appraisal well that will be drilled in the Discovery Area. NEITHER OF THESE TWO WELLS WILL BE TESTED WHILE BEING DRILLED but cores will be taken from these and subsequent wells for analysis..............

The biggest thing to watch is, as said many times, VOLUME.

Around 10 million shares traded on 1 day is when something is going on. So look for if volume moves up past 5 million shares traded intraday, that will be an indicator that something might be cooking.

At the moment volume is small and so, nobody presently knows much.

In the waiting period I expect the price to gyrate between 350p and 380p while the short term traders go long and short, trying to scare people or suck them in to get some movement to feed their short term trades.

If you want a reference point this is the chart prior to Sea Lion discovery RNS.

The price kept falling down gently for days on sub 5M shares volume per day and then BANG.





RKH do not do leaks and do wireline logging only after getting to TD :)

Presentation on the new S2 fan, to be drilled in a downdip location during this ongoing exploration well.

http://www.rockhopperexploration.co.uk/pdf/s2_presentation.pdf

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I must say, with reference to the S2 presentation that went up on the RKH website late yesterday, its interesting timing to put the details up.

Most people would assume, and it may be incorrect, that you would not put the information up unless you later wanted to talk about it, and indeed, the only reason to talk about it would be hydrocarbons being found.

Interesting, perhaps a precursor for some good news in the days ahead ? ;)

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Something else that is interesting is that "on loan stock" - or if you like shorts, is reducing all the time, its getting near the stage of being minimal now and continues down over the last couple of days.


This means that normal short positions in the stock are tiny, and that means nobody is hearing any bad news perhaps. (this excludes naked shorting or spread bet shorting, just standard shorting where stock is borrowed and sold)



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New contract in place, when this well, the appraisal well and DESIRES other well are complete a new 3 well + 1 option contract is in place.

http://www.diamondoffshore.com/ourFleet/rigStatus.php

I would guess this will allow us to get to August, at which point ARG should have a good idea of what they want to do and be party to a future extension contract.

Well, if you go to the RKH web site using Internet Explorer

http://www.rockhopperexploration.co.uk/investor-information/reports_presentations.php


Right click on the thumbnail of the S2 Images and select properties you get

thumb_agm_s2_2011.jpg

Which means "Thumbnail AGM S2 2011"


So this presentation is going to be shown at the AGM in 2011. That kind of suggests that they have found something in the S2 fan and its going to become a new discussion point in future.

Interesting.........

Trying to guess this....the most likely story is that they have encountered oil but not in commercial amounts but this confirms the size of sea lion which will hopefully confirm the sp......much more upside than downside here....if no oil -to me : minus 30p, and then it will come back...anything else and the upside could be anything from 50p to several pounds.....so a good share to be in is my way of thinking....

It shows that short term traders/day traders are controlling the price, as the RKH and GKP charts for the short term are nearly the same.