Max Petroleum a Speculative Buy
Says James Faulkner of WatsHot.com
On WatsHot.com, James provides two hot new recommendations each month, as well as regular updates on his share tips and a daily column. Although past performance is no guarantee of future success, and some tips have gone down in value, the average gain per tip as at 31st December 2010 across the 23 stocks tipped last year on WatsHot.com was 73.28%. To get more top tips like this from James, including 2 in the next 10 days, join WatsHot.com now.
And here’s why James thinks that Max Petroleum is one of the hottest oil plays around…
Last week’s drilling update from Max Petroleum merits a review of this long-running WatsHot favourite, which looks like it could be about to finally deliver the goods. The sagw-1 exploration well in the Sagiz West prospect reached a depth of 1,406 metres with electric logs indicating 27 metres of net pay, including 21 metres of oil and 6 metres of gas pay, over a 114 metre interval in the Triassic formation. Reservoir quality was said to be “very good” and the company estimates oil in place in the Sagiz West Field at 66 million barrels with expected recovery factors ranging between 20 to 30%. Along with other successful wells drilled of late, this brings the overall success rate with the shallow exploration programme to 50% since January 2010. The company has now moved on to drill the ask-2 exploration well in Block E, targeting Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs with estimated unrisked mean resource potential of 50 million barrels. More wells will follow through to 2012 as the seismic information is fed into the company’s model.
Drilling these smaller plays before moving on the bigger fry makes sound economic sense, but the market has been stubbornly disinterested for some time now. With sizes ranging from 9 to 50 million barrels, these prospects are not huge but they are numerous enough to add up to a significant production base for Max, while drilling costs are low at less than $2 million per well. The company is already a producer – to the tune of around 2,200 barrels per day – from its Zhana Makat licence, but recent progress should see production rise to 3,500 bopd from Zhana Makat alone. Moreover, once the company has ffd (full field development) approval (anticipated around December 2011) it will sell 80% of its oil into the international market. Max Petroleum has indicated that the after tax effect of selling oil into the external market is equivalent to a $15-$17 per barrel increase in crude oil prices. In short, the cashflow situation for Max is improving considerably.
The exploration schedule for 2011 remains mouth-watering for investors, with remaining prospects targeting a total of 117 million barrels. These include the Sagiz West (mentioned above), Zhalgiz South, Asanketken Triassic, Uytas North and possibly Karasai South. The potential on offer is such that broker Merchant Securities can “scarcely think of another junior oil & gas company that has a comparably aggressive exploratory drilling campaign over this period.” And this in spite of the fact that none of these are among the bigger, pre-salt prospects!
However, the initiation of drilling activities in the deeper pre-salt plays, which are purported to contain more than five billion barrels of oil, remains the key catalyst as far as the market is concerned. Drilling at the Emba-B prospect is expected to commence in October and should take around 180 days and $30 million. Max is approaching the most exciting period in its development, yet the current valuation is wholly unreflective of the opportunities available. It is my view that this is one of – if not the – most exciting oil plays around at the moment. Speculative buy.