What goes down - must come back up.
So it might be a good time to invest in KE - if you can pick them up on the private market.
(i'm sure you will find a few sellers if you hang around Bugis St late at night, just around the corner from the Singapore exchange)

Before they were suspended last year the shares were down to 2.7% of what they were worth in 2013, the year they stepped into Cambodia.
So hey, 'plenty of "upside" there!

As surely as great globs of oil float to surface of the Gulf of Thailand from a two bit drilling rig- EVERYbody knows the price of oil runs in cycles.

BP and Shell just ain't with the programme. Typical EU and UK surrender monkeys.
The US Energy Admin reckons it'll hit a hundred bucks again - real soon.

20 Nov
Extract from a financial report that KE was ordered by the Singapore court to release to all the stakeholders on Friday- in the interests of transparency.

As you can see, the situ describes a company that is nearly at deaths door.
This is not the end of the saga. maybe. but it is a pretty good indication of where they are at...

Nov 20, 2020
4.1.4 Despite the KEL Group’s efforts,.... these measures were not sufficient for the KEL Group to recover and operate in a manner that would be sustainable in the long run.

- challenges faced with raising the required funding to support working capital and bring on stream development projects to provide additional production, revenue and cash flow;

- lower production than anticipated resulting in lower revenue and cash flow, the impact of which was exacerbated by depressed oil prices;

- sale of certain assets not materialising due to weak investor sentiment and a mismatch in buyer and seller asset price perceptions due to volatile oil and gas commodity pricing; and

- debt servicing costs limiting the KEL Group’s ability to fund capital expenditures from existing cash flow.

- (last year)... gearing increased from 95.5% to 140.8%.

4.1.7 With the exception of DBS, banks and alternative credit providers have generally declined to provide new credit line given the KEL Group’s weakened financial condition and lack of unencumbered assets to provide as collateral.

4.1.10 Financing costs of the Company’s debt has eroded free cash flow available for revenue generating and value creation activities.
(ie -crippled by debt)

***Governments require licence holders to invest in exploring and developing the assets to bring them to production and to continually invest to maintain and increase existing production. This imposes significant costs on the KEL Group which it is unable to currently fund.

unquote

Things are going against them in the courts too.
They have been fighting off this winding up move by a creditor owed $3 million.
They just lost a crucial appeal to stop the process from proceeding.
It is a bit of a worry that they can't pay a puny $3 mill, at risk of being totally shut down.

Nov 19; the Company wishes to update that KE’s appeal against the dismissal of KE’s application to restrain Rubicon’s
presentation of the winding up petition in the Cayman Islands has been dismissed, and costs
awarded to Rubicon, by the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands.

The next court hearing for the winding up petition is scheduled on 24 November 2020.

(Cayman's are where they are registered. Listed on the Singapore exchange)

It just gets stinkier...
Keppel Offshore and Marine conglomerate is effectively KrisEnergy's parent company.
This is how they do biz (-it has been alleged)

Keppel O&M corruption scandal explained
Zhangxin Zheng | Jeanette Tan | January 04, 2018, 05:11 PM

"A Singaporean government-linked company, Keppel Offshore & Marine (O&M), has been found to have done some very corrupt things -- paying people a lot of money to accept their business over other companies.

Some S$73 million was involved over 14 years -- between 2001 and 2014.
(systemic - and probably much more)
The money went to people very high up in Brazil -- politics as well as in the oil sector -- in order to win contracts for business.
Keppel's profits? In excess of S$467.6 million.

And then they forked out more than S$563 million in fines in a deal to avoid going to trial about it -- to Brazil, the U.S. and to Singapore's governments.
This case is set to go down in history as a record settlement for a cross-border corruption probe involving a Singapore-listed entity.

So, let's break this whole thing down...." (full story >)
https://mothership.sg/2018/01/what-is-t ... all-about/

Production begins from Apsara field offshore Cambodia
By NS Energy Staff Writer 30 Dec 2020
The Block A is 95% owned by KrisEnergy while the remaining 5% interest is held by Royal Government of Cambodia

Singapore’s KrisEnergy, in a joint venture with the Cambodian government, has commenced extracting first crude oil from Apsara field in the offshore Cambodia Block A concession, following years of delays.

The Block A is owned and operated by KrisEnergy 95% stake while the remaining 5% interest is held by Royal Government of Cambodia through the General Department of State Property and Non Tax Revenue (GDSPNTR) of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

KrisEnergy said that the production from the Apsara field began flowing from a single development well. Production is planned to be increased once four additional wells are commissioned and completed.
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/p ... -cambodia/#

Cambodia Begins Oil Production, But Who Will Benefit?

Blog Post by Joshua Kurlantzick
January 7, 2021

Late last year, Cambodia finally began oil production, from offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand. A joint venture between the Cambodian government and Singaporean company KrisEnergy Ltd started production, and will be ramping up new wells in the coming months. Cambodia has known about its offshore oil for more than a decade, and other oil firms like Chevron had invested in Cambodian offshore exploration in the past. But production had been delayed for years as some companies were scared off by the low global price of oil and as the Cambodian government initially could not reach a deal on production with an oil company.

The offshore fields will start with a peak production of around 7,500 barrels of oil per day, a relatively small amount: major oil states like Russia produce well over 10 million barrels each day, and neighboring states like Thailand produce more than Cambodia as well. But even that modest output will reportedly create some $500 million in new revenue for Cambodia, where GDP per capita is only around $1,500.

Cambodian government believes there are hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in its offshore waters; revenues could increase as new wells are developed after the project’s first phase. Announcing the production online, Prime Minister HE called the oil output “a blessing.” And yet, in one of the most authoritarian and corrupt countries in East Asia, a place where HE has throttled the remnants of Cambodia’s pseduodemocracy in recent years, who will actually benefit from the new oil production?
https://www.cfr.org/blog/cambodia-begin ... ll-benefit

So much unquestioning in these retweets of the the company and the Gov's spin ^^^

"The offshore fields will start with a peak production of around 7,500 barrels of oil per day"
V.
"KrisEnergy said that the production from the Apsara field began flowing from a single development well. Production is planned to be increased once four additional wells are commissioned and completed."

(nb, A development well is not a commercial production well. In this case it is a testing operation - only put in place now due to the government forcing KrisEnergy to hurry things up - to start fulfilling its endlessly unfulfilled promises - or loose the concession)

The "7,500 barrel" operation is still in la la never never land. It has NOT commenced.
It is far from certain it will ever commence.
NB -Neither Chevron nor KE developed the field when oil was $100 bucks a barrel. then $80, then $70 - when they had the choice. Why not ???

This field is still classic wild-cat stuff after 20 years of exploration and investigations.
It may be a nice little earner and justify (but never repay) the 500 mill debt and 20 years of grand promises, fat-cat salaries and stock market plays - IF the price of oil ever skyrockets again.
However all the major oil companies agree that recent rises in the price of oil are unlikely to go significantly higher. Probably ever.

Not saying the oil price will not skyrocket and that this field will never be developed.
Just saying that these press release are BS - totally misleading.

PS - The $500 mil to the RCG is pure fantasy too. Blue sky stuff plucked from the sun.
(The 5% production share is only part of the deal. Royalties are supposed to provide the bulk of Cambodia's $$$)

The poor (below international standard) royalty deal Cambodia eventually settled for when they finally faced reality - means that royalties will only be high if the price of oil goes far higher than production costs.
Low/med profitability might mean the company does OK but Cambodia will get very little.
(nb, traditionally ^^ that is one of the openings for big corruption, elsewhere)

AND production needs to be at high volumes ( no royalties are paid for the first X,000 barrels - the company gets credits for significant development cost before Cambodia gets a cent).
That is still very very debatable. NObody is sure yet that this field is not a total dud. (this one single development well is supposed to put that to the test)

With refinery delayed, 100% of Cambodia’s crude oil to be exported
14 January 2021 7:19 PM
Sorn Sarath

The price of gasoline in Cambodia will not decrease following the country’s ascent to the list of oil-producing nations last month, with 100% of the crude to be exported overseas as construction of an oil refinery remains stalled, officials said.

Between 800 and 1,000 barrels of oil are being extracted from Cambodia’s first well in the Gulf of Thailand, which went online December 28, but speculation that the price of fuel would drop is unfounded, said the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

“Our crude oil will be exported as we don’t have the oil refinery yet,” said Cheap Sour, director-general of the ministry’s department of petroleum. “The production provides revenue to the state for development, not a lower price of gasoline.”

After years of delays, news of the first drop of oil being extracted from the Block A concession off the coast of Cambodia was greeted as a “blessing for the people” by Prime Minister HE, as observers called for transparency regarding the revenue.

Singapore-listed firm KrisEnergy, which holds a 95% stake in the project, said that oil extraction is expected to peak at about 7,500 barrels per day in mid-February, but all of that will be exported for the foreseeable future, Sour said.

Construction of a $620 million oil refinery on a site straddling Kampot and Preah Sihanouk provinces has been put on hold due to financial issues between the partners, Cambodia Petrochemical Co and the Chinese-state owned Northeast Refining and Chemical Engineering Co, he said.

It remains unclear when work will resume.

“The project is stuck now and the company is looking for a new partner,” he said. “We hope that when the oil refinery is complete, processing should be local.”

A spokesman for KrisEnergy said that that oil extracted from Block A, also known as Apsara, will be held on storage vessels until the volume reaches an appropriate amount, and then sold to buyers that remain unknown.

“Apsara crude oil will be sold on a spot basis and the destination country will vary depending on the purchaser of the oil,” he said.

While news of Cambodia extracting its first oil was met with great fanfare and celebrated as a victory for the people and the nation, citizens were surprised to learn that it won’t mean a reduction in the price of gasoline.
https://cambojanews.com/with-refinery-d ... -exported/