Disclosure: I have no financial interest in Premier Oil. Premier Oil’s interim results confirmed my view of this stock: this company has good assets and is operating well, but its debt situation means the stock remains a sell for equity investors. Here’s are four reasons why

Disclosure: I have no financial interest in any company mentioned. I’ll update this post when Gulf’s board issues a statement or any further news emerges. Update 29/07/16 @ 1945: Gulf Keystone issued a response to the DNO proposal after the market closed today. The firm

Disclosure: I have no financial interest in any company mentioned. I’ve received a couple of emails from readers regarding Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP.L). The bulletin boards are awash with complaints suggesting that the board of directors have failed in their duty to shareholders — and that a

Disclosure: I own shares of Lamprell. Yesterday’s results from Dubai-based oil rig builder Lamprell reported a net profit of $66.5m, ahead of forecasts for $59.4m. The firm’s balance sheet remains strong, with year-end net cash of $210.3m. As I discussed in December, my

Disclosure: I have no financial interest in any company mentioned in this article. This isn’t an article calling the bottom for the oil market — although I do expect this to happen at some point in 2016. Instead, what I thought I’d do would be to

Disclosure: I own shares in Lamprell. This week’s 2015 interim results from Lamprell (LON:LAM) contained no nasty surprises. A net profit of $20m and revenue of $341m is consistent with the firm’s guidance for a result heavily-weighted towards H2, due to the timing of construction

Today’s offer by Royal Dutch Shell for BG Group has compelling logic, in my view, and should be a sound move for both firms, albeit one which will take a few years to prove itself. Shell’s expertise and focus on LNG and deepwater drilling is well-mirrored

Victoria Oil & Gas is supplying gas for heat and power to industrial customers in Douala, Cameroon (image copyright Victoria Oil & Gas) Having slated Victoria Oil & Gas plc (LON:VOG) after the publication of its 2014 results, I decided to take a look at the firm’s

Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited (LON:GKP) got private investors all hot and flustered yesterday, after announcing that the firm was reviewing the options for a possible sale or asset sale. I don’t know what the buyers who bid the shares up to 55% were expecting, but yesterday’

In any market crash, the first companies to suffer are the smallest, and those with unmanageable debt loads. We’ve already seen the effects of ill-judged debt loads: Afren has been pushed to the brink and in my view shareholders are likely to be wiped out Premier Oil, Enquest

The near-demise of Afren Plc (LON:AFR) caught many investors by surprise, and I have to admit that while I did flag up the risk of a collapse following the firm’s admission that it was seeking to delay a $50m bond interest payment, I underestimated the true scale

The falling price of oil is starting to throw up potential bargains in the engineering and oil services industries. Three examples from the engineering sector are Fenner plc (LON:FENR), Lamprell Plc (LON:LAM) and The Weir Group PLC (LON:WEIR). However, there’s a clear risk that all

I’ve written before about the need for Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited (LON:GKP) to deliver on its promises if it is to retain any credibility as an investment, and I was pleased to see this morning that the company has done exactly that. Oil production from Shaikan should

Today’s update from BG Group plc (LON:BG) was very much a case of taking the rough with the smooth. On the one hand, the firm announced an impressive $5bn asset sale, but on the other hand it announced another big impairment and indicated that assumptions about future

Trap Oil Group PLC (LON:TRAP) has been an unmitigated disaster as an investment, despite the firm’s promising start, cash-generating asset and today’s £18m cash balance. Just how bad the market’s view of the firm is is illustrated by the fact it currently trades

Despite the calamitous decline in the BG Group plc (LON:BG) share price fall over the last year, the LNG-focused E&P company retains a sizeable valuation premium over integrated oilers BP (LON:BP) and Royal Dutch Shell. A look at each company’s underlying reserves and own

Shares in Afren Plc (LON:AFR) have fallen by 71% this year. I’m sure that all shareholders are familiar with the reasons why — management fired for taking backhanders and a falling oil price — but it’s starting to look to me as though this sell-off

Today’s underwhelming interim results from IGas Energy PLC (LON:IGAS) were followed a few hours later by a second RNS, defending the IGas chief executive Andrew Austin’s share sale and repurchase deal with Equity First Holdings, of Quindell fame. My jaw dropped as I read the

Investors who ignored the old stock market adage that profit warnings come in threes will have had their fingers burned when Petrofac Limited (LON:PFC) fell by more than 25% yesterday. I know — I was one of them. However, I’m not disheartened, and am even contemplating a

It’s a sad fact that directors of AIM resources companies often get rich far more quickly — and reliably — than their shareholders. Victoria Oil & Gas plc (LON:VOG) is far from the worst offender in this regard, but I do think that shareholders might want to

This morning’s RNS from Trap Oil Group PLC (LON:TRAP) sent the firm’s shares flying — and rightly so. The company announced that former CEO Mark Groves Gidney and COO Paul Collins have now finally stepped down, and updated the market on progress with cost reduction

Having slated Victoria Oil & Gas plc (LON:VOG) in a recent article following the publication of its final results, I was eagerly awaiting the publication of the company’s annual report, in the hope that it would answer some of the many questions I was left with after

Even by the standards of the oil and gas sector, shares in Gulf Keystone Petroleum Limited (LON:GKP) have performed badly this year. As I write, the stock is down by 60% on the year to date, despite gaining 35% in the last two days. What’s going on?

Early feedback from David Lenigas devotees on Twitter suggested that this morning’s RNS announcements from the Horse Hill companies may have been positive. Comments such as “we have a winner” may have suggested that the well had performed in-line with expectations. I can only assume that

Victoria Oil & Gas is using its producing Cameroon gas field, Logbaba, to create a gas supply network for industry in the Doula region of Cameroon (image copyright Victoria Oil & Gas). I’ve long been a bull of Victoria Oil & Gas plc (LON:VOG), but after reading