Oil price, Jadestone. And finally…

WTI $40.65 +83c, Brent $43.14 +$1.11, Diff -$2.49, NG $1.73 +6c

Oil price

Another good day for crude as we go into the Independence Day Holiday weekend, with US markets closed equities and commodities can take a breather. They certainly did OK yesterday as once again the economists were proven to be wrong in their reading of just how quickly America is getting back to work. The NFP gained 4.8m jobs with the employment rate down to 11.1% from 13.3%, expect other economies to follow suit but maybe with slightly less vigour.

Now in July and thoughts turn to stocks drawing down, the Baker Hughes rig count showed a fall of 2 units overall to 263 and down 3 in oil to 185, this is now a 9 week falling trend. Going into a big driving weekend one might expect to see some more positive inventory numbers as well as signs of demand pull in gasoline to add to the picture. Sure, nothing is going to run away fast but around $40 seems to be the norm at the moment.

Jadestone Energy

JSE has announced that it is going into arbitration in Singapore over the acquisition of a 30% interest in Block 05-1 PSC with Inpex for a total cash consideration of US$14.3 million back in August 2016. JSE do not accept Inpex’s alleged ‘termination’ and has taken advice and has determined that it is in shareholders best interests to challenge the ‘purported’ termination of the SPA.

Paul Blakeley, President and CEO commented:

“We intend to complete our planned acquisition of a 30% interest in Block 05-1 from Inpex.  Prior to the purported termination, the parties had worked together and made very substantial progress toward closing the deal, a process which included Inpex requesting that the deal not be terminated even after the long stop date had passed, and with the objective of obtaining Petrovietnam’s waiver of their pre-emptive rights, which was then achieved in early February 2018.  While commencing arbitration is never an easy decision, we have exhausted all avenues to come to an amicable conclusion, and now feel Inpex’s continued unwillingness to complete the SPA constitutes a material breach of their obligations, to the detriment of potential value for Jadestone shareholders.”

And finally…

At last we have a fabulous weekend of sport shaping up, the return of F1, a huge flat racing programme and of course loads of footy.

But first last night where the Blades got back to form and beat Spurs 3-1 whilst Liverpool went to the Noisy Neighbours and lost 4-0…

On Saturday it’s the Canaries v the Seagulls, the Cherries go to the Theatre of Dreams, the Foxes entertain the eagles, Wolves host the Gooners and Chelski welcome the Hornets. Sunday sees the ‘Mighty Clarets (as i have been advised to call them!) v the Blades, the Magpies host the Hammers, Villa go to fortress Anfield and the Saints host the Noisy Neighbours.

That F1 I mentioned is the first of two in Austria and with a shortened season there is no room for ‘warming up’ so to speak.

It’s the Derby this weekend, out of kilter like most races but it is tomorrow at Epsom, Aidan O’Brien as usual saddles half the race with his leading contender likely to be Mogul but English King and Kameko are both highly rated.  In the Oaks, also tomorrow Love is the answer I suspect whatever the question is although Frankly Darling might do it for Franky…Finally it’s also a chance to see favourite filly Enable in the Coral Eclipse at Sandown on Sunday, phew……