Xciters.
PhilsGain's post op iii is hevig opgetikt, want geeft aan dat Xcite's Intellectual Property tot enorme besparingen zou kunnen leiden, zoals hij goed uitlegt in zijn verhaal met vergelijkingen van aantal bronnen in Mariner. Bressay en Bentley.Alle 3 heavy oil.
Dit heeft tot een hevig debat geleid op iii. Er waren lui die beweren dat Xcite's IP niks bijzonders is en dat alle gebruikte technieken ontwikkeld zijn en in bezit zijn van oilservicebedrijven zoals Schlumberger, etc. en beschikbaar zijn voor alle oliemijen die er voor willen betalen.
PG had hier het volgende antwoord op:
"Reidser is correct in saying that Xcite have 250 million barrels of 2P reserves and how best to exploit them. Some of this proprietary knowledge was gained during the EWT. About 2 minutes into the Christmas message video this is what Rupert said:
“The production test demonstrated how the oil and water behaved in the reservoir, which was very predictable, and better than we modelled. This understanding of the water also has a major economic impact, as we can now accurately assess the process equipment needed for future development. Everything we've done in this production test, especially our understanding of the water, has given us very valuable proprietary knowledge. Good commercial sense dictates that we retain this knowledge, with a view to sharing it only with potential partners in due course, to maximise its value to shareholders.”
I forget which director it was, whether it was Rupert or Stephen, who after the successful EWT said something like ‘they’d love to know how we did it’.
Just last month Xcite announced the sale of Bentley well test data for £15million under a non-exclusive confidential agreement and which would yield a further £1million payment upon the data acquirer completing certain regulatory milestones. In the announcement Rupert said the agreement was done without compromising the Company’s intellectual property and that it was complementary to the farm-out process.
Now while this new understanding of the reservoir and water behaviour has given Xcite ‘very valuable proprietary knowledge’ especially to enable them to efficiently extract the oil out of Bentley it is clearly more than just that otherwise they wouldn’t go to the lengths of calling it ‘very valuable’. You wouldn’t bother calling knowledge proprietary if it was only ever any good to one field application. There is knowledge there that will help unlock some significant portion of the untapped 9 billion barrels of ultra heavy oil in place out of the North Sea - a figure that Xcite have frequently mentioned in their presentations since 2010. You wouldn’t have companies of the likes of Statoil willing to cough up £15million to see the ‘proof of the pudding’ well test data even without the specific methodology being revealed if it wasn’t valuable.
The IP will also include the application of the high technology employed during the well tests. It’s not necessarily the technology itself which of course is likely available to all operators in the oil industry. The application of that available technology requires a certain skill set and special knowledge. It is a very scientific knowledge and it is UNIQUE to Xcite.
I can’t stress enough the similarities between the Mariner, Bressay and Bentley fields. Of course there are some differences and even within one field there is a range of viscosity, permeability and degree of API etc but essentially the benchmark characteristics are similar enough for this proprietary knowledge to be of benefit across all of these fields.
I was at pains yesterday to point out the huge number of wells Statoil plan to drill on Mariner and Bressay and especially the high number of water injection wells. While on Bentley the number of wells planned to achieve a similar level of daily oil production appears to be significantly less. I believe Xcite’s IP is a significant contributing factor to this, and that the knowledge is definitely transferable to other ultra-heavy oil fields to the point of yielding notable cost savings. In Statoil’s case it could shave off millions, probably at least hundreds of millions if not even ultimately billions off the £18 billion that the UK government estimated Statoil would be spending on Mariner & Bressay over the next 45 years -provided of course they make their move soon enough to farm-in to Bentley and be allowed to transfer this same knowhow to their adjacent fields."
Persoonlijk ben ik de volgende mening toegedaan:
RC heeft gezegd tegen Paul Rutherford/Investingisatrickything (de man achter het iii Private XEL Board) dat Xcite's IP niet 1 specifieke zaak betreft, maar een proces is.
Op de laatste jaarvergadering heeft hij blijkbaar ook gezegd: The IP is deeply embedded in the extraction process as we use it.
Ze hebben het al jaren en recentelijk in toenemende mate over hun 'valuable IP'.
Wat het ook moge zijn, ik geloof erin.
Anders beweer je als bedrijf dit niet continu.
'Heavy oilpartner of choice' is imho ook niet een kreet die zomaar uit de lucht is gegrepen.
En idd, ze hebben het in hun presentaties al jaren over de 9 billion barrels of heavy oil in de Noordzee alleen.
Enfin, wat de waarde van die IP is zal over niet al te lange tijd wel blijken, denk ik zo.
I love it when a plan comes together!
Z. te T.