Ann: Trading Update, page-78

It's hard to know really what the price is going up however it's worth remembering this happened last year as well increased from its low early last year to see the stock briefly tried at $.50 or thereabouts again before releasing news about their banking difficulties which saw the price tank again.

From what I read overseas companies the situation remains incredibly grim.

For example for all of the US offshore drilling companies no significant new investment by oil company clients is expected in this calendar year.

Overseas it seems that the big boil companies are not interested in offshore drilling as instead they are trying to keep their dividends going and the method of keeping the dividends going is to invest in shorter cycle project's that deliver a more immediate result.

None of this favours offshore drilling or boats.

So therefore in the drilling space 2017 is largely expected to be a repeat of 2016. Only in 2018 are many companies predicted to return to a neutral earnings situation. Need to remember that all of these companies are trading at all near cash breakeven however none of this includes allowances for vessel depreciation or those costs associated with returning stacked vessels to operations.

Offshore operations really do require a higher price to make any investment and therefore trigger demand for the services.

We also see many stressed companies at the moment including the likes of Sea drill and Tidewater whereby it is a very real chance that equityholders will be completely wiped out by balance sheet restructuring and the requirements of the various lenders. It might not seem fair but the situation of MRM is more than vaguely comeparable to that of Tidewater.

All in all it doesn't seem like good news for MRM. My observations is that MRM closely follows the competitors in the space.

I can't see any reason for the current rally in the MRM share price however it's nice to see green. I have a hunch that before too long it will return to lower prices again.