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.

Here here.

cheers GF.

Looking at some of the NAV figures being discussed on other sites is quite interesting.
Some very knowledgable investors/researchers are quoting figures of between 30 and 41.
Quite extraordinary.
Already overloaded with Soco but, if anything, the case for buying now is more compelling than ever.

;o)

I would agree with that but lets be carefull here Ian.

Cheers GF.

Hi GF
Yes indeed.
The high valuations were the potential of the SP should everything come on stream at excellent flow rates, with no problems etc etc.
However my unrisked current NAV of 15 seems perfectly reasonable in this context !!
Barring any truly extraordinary outside factors there seems to be a very fine chance of a 25% gain in a pretty short period of time.

;o)

I would welcome that Ian. Fingers crossed.

cheers GF.

Taken a few bobs profit here. this ones up over 310% since I first posted it here so Ive locked some gains in.

Hoping we get above 15 and more with the rest of my stake.

cheers GF.

Well done on being in Soco. I remember it being tipped by the FT 6 months ago. I dunno how many barrels it's got in reserve. But that can be found out from the annual report. I didn't realise how easy it is to find out info. It's all in the annual reports. you get if from the horses mouth as opposed to rumours etc, you can calculate the difference that a major find will have to the market cap, thus the share price.

Certainly do Saint.

Another good board to do research on which is free for especially forecasts is Digitallook.com

They also have a fantastic stock screener.

1 minute to sign up.

cheers GF.

Excellent rise today. Just keeps on going up.

Teather & Greenwood reiterates its hold stance on BSkyB, has buy ratings for Soco International, Yell Group, Premier Oil and Heywood Williams and sell ratings for PartyGaming and Rexam.

Cheers GF.

Not far off 15 sheets per share now. what an investment.

Through 15 and booming......

Soco Intl reports further positive results from offshore Vietnam oil field
AFX


LONDON (AFX) - Oil exploration group Soco International PLC said it has struck oil again with its latest test well on its offshore oil field in Vietnam.

The well is 10 km south of a test well that struck oil last year on the field.

Soco president and CEO Ed Story said the results from the latest well 'confirm that this structure represents a major oil field.

'We will begin the required reserve assessment report and development studies, which we expect will lead to a Declaration of Commerciality in the near future.'

Story added that the latest well significantly increases the group's confidence in the field and for future test wells in other areas.

newsdesk@afxnews.com

cw

A lot of attention being drummed up on this one around the various boards.

Hi VIS, I told you I had posted this one here.

cheers GF.

Soco strikes black gold with third appraisal well


Investors sank their money into Soco International (SIA) this morning after the oil and gas explorer announced its TGT-3X appraisal well in Vietnam has tested at 9,008 barrels per day plus 5.4m cubic feet of gas per day.

The share price rose more than 11% or 167.5p and was trading at 1,628p at 12pm in London.

"The results of the TGT-3X well confirm this structure represents a major oil field," commented Ed Story, Soco's president and chief executive. "We will begin the required reserve assessment report and development studies, which we expect will lead to a Declaration of Commerciality in the near future.

The company said the LBH 5.2 reservoir sands encountered in the TGT-3X well are the same as those tested in the TGT-1X and -2X wells, which confirms the prospects of the TGT structure.

The success of this well is likely to result in an increase in the company's previous 200 million barrels estimate to 300 or even 500, according to Phil Corbett, oil and gas analyst at Numis Securities, who raised his recommendation from Reduce to Hold this morning. "If you look at the share price, the market was expecting good results from the well, so it adequately reflects the discoveries made," he told Investegate.

"The other thing alluded to in the statement was that the firm sees lots of further upside on acreage in Vietnam, and the market is already factoring in some of that upside."

Seymour Pierce retains an Outperform rating.

Alison Swersky, staff writer, Bloomberg Money

A bit of profit taking been going on.

Shares mag , says these are on a prospective P/E of 4 for next year, and just 1 for the following year. Looks a bit ridculous to me, would suggest a 200 sp in two years.
What does everyone else think?

200!!!!!!, I think you could mean 20 sheets ?.

Cheers GF.

No, if the share price is currently 15, and that puts us on a forecast P/E of 1, then a P/E of just over 13 in two years time would give us 200.
Assuming of course that the forecast earnings quoted in shares mag are correct?

Andy, I dont think they are correct. See link below. Also best not just to use P/E for valuing resource stocks but also NAV.
http://uk.finance.digitallook.com/cgi-bin/digital/security.cgi?username=1038899&ac=7019701&csi=13483

cheers GF.

Yeh I've checked digital look myself, but they are sometimes very slow to update.
I suspect Shares mags figures are a bit speculative. But when you look at the investor presentation and the recent drilling results; they suggest output with the new capacity could increase from around 5,000 bopd to 100,000 bopd in just two years, making the digitallook figures look like complete nonsense.

Fair enough.