Right I havent beleived in investing directly in an oil company untill today and in the last few months have been investing in OIL SERVICE companys Hamworthy and Corac, you know the picks and shovels tale.

Anyway after doing a lot of research I really feel that SOCO INTERNATIONAL SIA as been left behind in the mass bull market on oil companies.

Forget, Burren, Regal, Dana and the rest in my opinion this is the one to be on.

So.....why buy Soco now?

Four inter-related reasons:

1) Newsflow is now very much in sight on several fronts. None of it has yet emerged though, so analysts have yet to revisit their old views and recommendations. There was, and indeed remains, a chance to get in before serious interest picks up again.

2) There is, IMO, a decent chance of some very large price rises within the next 6 months, accompanied by increased downside protection. Once newsflow starts, the shares will come back onto institutional radar screens - you can wait for it to emerge, or you can speculate now at what I think will prove to be a lower price -perhaps much lower!

3) The market thinks there is nothing happening and has gone to sleep on the prospects. You can see this in the broadly sideways drift and very low volumes on most days [until this week]. They are wrong. Yemen and perhaps Mongolia should provide some near-term good news.

4) The time to buy is when no-one else seems very interested.

And heres the last results from the company......................

Soco International PLC
02 September 2004

SOCO International plc

Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2004

SOCO is an international oil and gas exploration and production company,
headquartered in London. The Company has interests in Vietnam, Mongolia, Yemen,
Libya, Tunisia and Thailand, with production operations in Yemen, Tunisia and
Mongolia. SOCO today announces interim results for the half year ended 30 June
2004.

HIGHLIGHTS

Operating profit of 4.1 million (2003: 4.2 million)

Net profit of 2.0 million (2003: 2.5 million)

Earnings per share of 2.9p (2003: 3.6p)

Cash balance of 26.7 million at half year end

Finalised the sale of an interest in ODEX creating a consortium of SOCO
(34%), Oilinvest (46%) and Gazprombank (20%) in the special purpose
entity to progress initiatives in Libya and other countries

Continued reinterpretation of existing 3D seismic and acquisition of 650
sq km of new 3D seismic in Vietnam prior to commencement of drilling in
Q1 2005

3D seismic programme completed in Mongolia with two wells drilled, both
apparent discoveries, and a third well spudded

First ever deviated Basement well drilling in East Shabwa in Yemen



Ed Story, President and Chief Executive of SOCO, said:

'Following an extended period of quiet preparation, the release of interim
results coincides with the commencement of a very active drilling programme for
SOCO, one that I believe has company transforming potential'

2 September 2004

ENQUIRIES:
SOCO International plc Tel: 020 7457 2020 (today)ENDS.

This could really be a craking stock and is worth getting in at these lowly price figures.

Please DYOR

cheers GF.

Hope so Yorkie!

I need another good one!

My best stock pick this year was Cairn Energy.

Apart from APF (You picked that one GF) & trading in & out of OXB at the right times, the rest of my picks have not been worth the bother.

All this boring research is hard work but occasionally it pays off.
I seem to be better at finding the problems & avoiding losses than finding the good shares before it is too late.

apple, nobody picks winners all the time. The trick is to dump the losers before they bite you too hard! And get on the winners as soon as. As for research and financials I don't go overboard - there are super sleuths like GF doing it for you! (no offense GF). And what more could you want to know that emptyend hasn't said? A quick peek at the chart of course. Read the piece by emptyend, there's an interesting sort of comparison with Cairn.

Hi yorkie, good advise there, you should never take a fellow poster on trust.

Check out the crack as it is given.

Thing is can you trust them??????????????


You can with me as all I want to is make sure4 you get price risers more or less everyday



cheers GF

WOW looks like this one has got investors attention.

Read the RNS bulletins, and then tell me its nota winner.

cheers GF.

PLEASE LOOK AT THE EXCELENT RESEARCH GIVEN EARLIER IN THIS THREAD.

GF.

Investors Chronicle

10 September 2004

SOCO INT'L. (SIA)

Perhaps the only number of any consequence in Soco's interim results was 26.7 - the amount of cash, in millions, available to fund its upcoming drilling programme in Vietnam. Soco was 'carried' through the first round of exploration wells by the Thai state oil company in return for some of its equity in the fields. It is now paying its own way.

So it is taking its time. Having hired several key personnel with extensive experience of the Cuu Long basin, Soco is now reinterpreting the results of seismic surveys in the light of subsequent exploration well findings. Up to six new wells will be drilled, starting in the first quarter of next year.

Elsewhere in the portfolio, there were some unexpectedly good drilling results from fields in Yemen, although Soco's stake here is modest. There was also a successful well in Mongolia.

The group's Oilinvest venture in Libya was restructured, with Russia's Gazprom bank becoming a 20 per cent shareholder and cutting Soco's stake to 34 per cent. Gazprom is the world's largest gas producer. The financials are largely meaningless, but were affected by unplanned downtime at some fields, changes in accounting methodology and the weaker dollar.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ord price: 293p Market value: 212m
Touch: 290-296p 12 month High: 357p Low: 266p
Dividend yield: nil PE ratio: 39
Net asset value: 177p* Net cash: 26.7m
*Includes of intangibles of 84.6m, or 117p a share



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Half-year Turnover Pre-tax Earnings per Div per
to 30 Jun (m) profit (m) share (p) share (p)

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

2003 11.7 4.51 3.6 nil
2004 8.4 4.11 2.9 nil
% change -28 -9 -19 -

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

Last IC view: 19 Mar 2004, page 67


Soco is all about Vietnam, so the shares are unlikely to do much until the drilling programme there gets under way. Worth keeping an eye on (watch for director buying), but fairly priced for now.

Shares Mag Sept 30th

SIA

The oil and gas explorer has historically had
little to report in terms of drilling but results
from the field finally appeared in the first half.
The company has producing sites as well as
exploratory projects spanning six countries
including Tunisia and Thailand. Management
said its poised to start a significant multi-well
drilling programme in Vietnam in early 2005.
The exploratory programme is based on newlyacquired
data covering an additional 650 sq km
of land, bordering allotments that have already
produced significant discoveries. (EP)

This could be the next Cairn Energy!

:-)

Energy funds

Framlington UK Select Opportunities is 18 per cent invested in resources companies, including Cairn and Shell.

Artemis UK Growth has 15 per cent weighting.

I wonder if they are looking at SIA.

http://www.socointernational.co.uk/press.php

http://www.socointernational.co.uk/fin_chair-ceo.php

Got in just after it sailed through 340 on more solid buying.

Excelent research Apple. This ones up 10p, good stuff.

cheers GF.

Well I've put a proportion of my Cairn profits into it & I'm already up a bit.

Very nice!

Some heavy volume today aswell.

cheers GF.

www.upstreamonline.com 6th Sep 04
Mongolia oil shows for Soco
UK independent Soco International has made two apparent oil discoveries at its producing onshore assets in the harsh environment of Tamtsag basin in Mongolia.

Independent 8th May 04
SOCO INTERNATIONAL (talk it will soon unveil a deal which will unlock some of the value behind its Libya assets)

Sunday Telegraph 7th March 04
SOCO INTERNATIONAL buy

Yahoo Finance
SOCO International plc Company Profile
SOCO International is not a so-so oil and gas company. The independent oil and gas exploration and production concern operates in a number of high-risk oil patches in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, including Libya, Mongolia, Thailand, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen. SOCO International has proved and probable reserves of 72.5 million barrels of oil equivalent.

http://www.ukbusinesspark.co.uk/sol88511.htm

http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-2-4/19371.html

Mongolian Oil Could Help China's Energy Woes
Company hopes for pipeline into northern China

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radio Free Asia

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 04, 2004

A Mongolian oilfield first discovered in the early 1990s has proven far more promising than originally believed, prompting calls for a pipeline linking it to northern China, RFAs Mandarin service reports.
The UK-based Soco International oil company said it had drilled four exploration wells in the Zuunbayan field, at the northeastern tip of Mongolia, during 2003. It said it had found significant reserves of a higher quality and greater predictability than was previously known in the area.

"We've discovered oil in a much better reservoir, at a shallower depth than the previous wells and one which we think we'll be able to predict with much greater certainty where to drill in the future," Soco International's president and chief executive Ed Story said in an interview.

"The key in what we've been about is to get enough quantity, proven reserves, to then go forward to build a pipeline so you can move larger quantities to sell to China," Story said, adding that Soco and its Chinese and Vietnamese partners had long had an eye on the China market.

China is facing skyrocketing oil bills as a result of strong economic growth, overtaking Japan in 2003 to become the world's second-largest oil importer. So far, its attempts to negotiate pipeline deals with major producers like Russia and Kazakhstan have not yielded fruit.

Wang Baoji, a Chinese representative at the project for the Huabei Petroleum Management Bureau, agreed that the oilfield was a significant find. "We've been cooperating with Soco since 1989," he told RFA. "As for production, it's been coming onstream fairly fast now. It's not bad... particularly Area 19 [in the Tamtsag Basin area]." He said the project had also promoted cooperation between China and Mongolia.

Huabei currently holds a 10 percent stake in the venture, with PetroVietnam holding 5 percent, and Soco 85 percent. The oilfield currently exports around 500 barrels daily by truck to China.

Story said Soco had chosen to work with Huabeiwhich provides drilling servicespartly because of their previous experience drilling in a similar deposit in China, and partly for economic reasons.

"We use Chinese rigs and Chinese personnel who've come over actually from the Huabei area, and that's the key, so we've got the costs down," he said, adding that Soco was probably the first oil company even to use Chinese drilling rigs outside China.

Those savings meant that Soco could afford to drill more wells in any given year, with a potential to export as much as 10,000 barrels per day if a pipeline were built. He said that now that the potential of the Mongolian oilfield was known, a pipeline would stand a good chance of attracting development funding.

"From the standpoint of China... it would be the closest source of additional oil reserves, although not on the scale of those in Russia, but certainly it could become significant, it could be very secure, and really support a trading relationship between China and Mongolia," Story said.

China's oil imports soared far above official forecasts last year, prompting concerns that the energy deficit could damage the country's economy. Crude oil imports rose by 31 percent in 2003 to more than 91 million tons, compared with the previous year. And the overall bill for foreign oil rose by 55 percent year-on-year to almost U.S.$20 billion.

Yes and only a few days ago there was a mention on the main news about how China was running out of oil.

cheers GF.

Some more top drawer research apple, well done. Theres far more upside to this one so dont think you have missed out.

Get on board now.

cheers GF.

Drifted back a little today but nothing goes up in a straight line. Far more to come.

cheers GF.

Tony, I really feel this one is the one to be in.

Please take a look at the previous research which is excelent coming mostly from apple.

cheers GF.