Big Picture, page-16

Hondamotorco ,

I think it is just white noise and general malaise of the UK onshore market which is not confined to Igas and Dart .

Some opportunists are no doubt doing their worst to take advantage of this . Manipulation is rife on AIM . We can't move to the main market quickly enough for my liking .


None of the big boys seem to want to buy in to UK shale even on a minority basis let alone as operators .

This was shown by Igas being the only offer on the table for Dart and I believe will be further shown by the 14th onshore licensing round bombing by failing to attract US big-shale and big-oil .

Centrica and Total's commitments look like little more than token gestures and may be for reasons completely unbeknown to us . Perhaps they did it as a favour to the Govt and expect something in return ?

A few things are happening on UK onshore which could change sentiment .
- The Horse Hill conventional prospect is currently being drilled . This is one of the deepest wells to be drilled in the Wealden basin and goes through stacked objectives and is expected to terminate in new type of conventional gas play . The high side of the prospective resources is material .
- Egdon and Europa look to be opening up a new hydrocarbon province in the onshore Humber Basin with oil which has not migrated from the Gainsborough Trough and looks to be coming from a new source rock . In late 2014Q4 or 2015Q1 they are due to drill the Kiln Lane prospect which will be deepened to intersect this new source rock and ascertain it's unconventional resource potential .

I am expecting both Cuadrilla and Igas/Dart to hydraulically fracture wells before the general election in 9 months time . Let's see what the results do for the SP .