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NMS - Neptune Marine Services

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http://www.petroleumnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=102730

APACHE Energy reportedly plans to increase its exploration and drilling spending in Australia to $1 billion next year.

Bloomberg quoted Tim Wall – the managing director of Apache's Australian unit – as saying the US energy giant would increase capital investment in drilling and exploration to $1 billion in 2008, up from $300 million.

The company counts Australia among its three core growth regions, along with Canada and Egypt.

Apache has stakes in the $US1.7 billion Pyrenees and the $US500 million Van Gogh oil projects, and in the Reindeer gas project.

The company also recently announced its Julimar discovery could hold 1 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Bloomberg reported that Apache was widening exploration in Australia to drill larger and deeper targets.

This year, it will drill more wells near the Julimar field, while in 2008 drilling is planned in the Gippsland Basin, where it is the largest holder of exploration acreage.
 
sophie - ive tried every sneaky trick i can think of to get an online copy of the article - you can see the article is online via the afr site, but you need to pay to get it.

theres nothing in there WE dont already know, but its a good article for the uninformed - and clearly there is plenty of those still.

i did like the quote "unfair competitive advantage"
 
Some help for you NMS followers:

http://www.moneymanager.com.au/articles/2007/07/30/1185647821708.html

Or, if you can't be bothered, I got it in a SMH alert subscription...

Rich pickings
Annette Sampson | August 1 2007 | The Sydney Morning Herald & The Age

It's every investor's Holy Grail. The small company with the potential to become the next BHP - or at least the next Worley Parsons or ABC Learning. The company set on a skybound trajectory with the likelihood of growing its earnings year-in and year-out. The company that currently trades for peanuts but with the potential to increase its share price many times.

The company, in short, that could turn your investment portfolio's performance from merely respectable to shoot-the-lights-out fantastic.

Welcome to the world of the small companies funds. The enormous returns reported by these funds in recent years are proof positive that there are rich pickings outside the top 150 or 200 stocks.

Over the past financial year, Australia's top-performing small companies funds returned more than 50 per cent. The top three - Macquarie's Small Companies Fund, Pengana's Emerging Companies Fund and Challenger's Microcap Fund - returned 82.23, 70.78 and 68.46 per cent respectively, according to researcher Morningstar.

Small companies funds have been some of the best performers in the market over recent years. According to Morningstar, the best small companies funds have returned more than 30 per cent each year for the past five years, meaning investors who got in early have multiplied their money.

But this is not a market where finding rich pickings is easy. Over the past 16 years, says Macquarie portfolio manager Neil Carter, the Small Ordinaries Accumulation Index has returned just 11.6 per cent a year. By comparison, larger companies have returned 12.3 per cent.

Carter says the median small companies manager over that period has returned 21.9 per cent but if you were with a poorly performing fund, or merely a mug punter, your returns could have been much less. "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," he says.

Michael Courtney, the smaller companies portfolio manager at Challenger, says he would be thrilled to have just one ABC Learning or Worley Parsons in his portfolio each year. Both were listed on the Stock Exchange as minnows and have grown into billion dollar enterprises. But even a company that can grow from $100 or $200 million to $500 million or more can be a tasty proposition.

The reason that small companies funds can outperform is the same reason it's dead easy to lose money at this end of the market. Few small companies attract the attention of brokers. On the plus side, this means good companies can be bought inexpensively. For those prepared to do their research - and most good small companies managers visit hundreds of companies each year - there is a great opportunity to identify growing companies and get in before the crowd.

But the lack of independent research also means investors are reliant on their own homework. Retail investors, in particular, can't just stroll into a managing director's office and start asking questions. Good information can be hard to come by. And while the occasional hot tip might pay off, just as many are likely to fail.

Carter says he has found companies that make a fabulous investment story have three things in common:

* They operate in a large and growing market.

* They have an unfair competitive advantage.

* They have the business model needed to turn the first two criteria into sales and profits.

Steve Black, Pengana's small companies fund manager, says his approach is to start by eliminating resource companies, loss-making companies and property trusts. This leaves it with 800 to 900 companies it can research aggressively.

Like most small companies funds, Pengana is a stock picker and relies heavily on understanding each company's business and finances. Black says he values stocks on their future cash flow and looks for companies that are undervalued relative to their likely future earnings.

Quality of management is also important. "There's not a lot of depth in management among companies worth $100 to $600 million," he says. "So the chief executive will have a large part to play in determining its success."

Like Carter, Black says it is critical to understand management's strategy for growing the company and to be confident they can deliver on those plans.

"We look for companies with a good earnings profile for a least three years and we have to like the guys running the business," says Don Williams, portfolio manager with the boutique Platypus funds management company, which manages the Australian Unity Acorn Microcap Trust - one of last year's 50 per cent-plus performers.

"If a company doesn't have those two qualities, the rest is irrelevant."

Unlike many retail investors, small companies funds are wary of speculative investments, preferring solid earnings and a strong business franchise to lots of blue sky.

"We could play uranium stocks and make 50 per cent easily," Courtney says. "But we don't like losing money. [Good returns] have been easier to get over the past three or four years but historically it's been quite easy to lose money in smaller companies."

So what are the fund managers tipping as the next big growth stories?

A peek into their portfolios reveals some lesser-known gems, and an insight into how the managers choose them. Here are their picks:

Arasor International (ARR)
<snip>

Austar United Communications (AUN)
<snip>

Blue Freeway (BLU)
<snip>

Cabcharge (CAB)
<snip>

Mineral resources (MIN)
<snip>

Neptune Marine Services (NMS)

Carter says Neptune is a good example of a company with an unfair competitive advantage. Neptune has developed a patented technology for underwater dry-welding, which has huge potential in applications such as oil rigs, underwater pipelines and shipping.

Traditionally if an oil rig in, say, the Gulf of Mexico, needed repairs, its owners had two choices. An underwater wet-weld could be used as an emergency measure but moisture and salt would be welded into the repair and it would only last for a matter of weeks.

The alternative was to dry dock the rig and weld it there which could prove time consuming and expensive.

Carter says a Gulf of Mexico rig could take six months to decouple, tow to port, dock, repair, and get back into action. In the meantime, production that could be worth millions of dollars a day was halted.

Neptune's Nepsys system allows the repair to be done in situ while the rig is still operating. Lloyds of London is prepared to issue a certificate that these repairs are as good as a dry dock weld.

"The potential market is the shipping, oil, and gas industries," Carter says. "The market is absolutely enormous and they're only starting to scratch the surface."

In Australia Neptune is active mostly on the North West Shelf but has not yet penetrated the Timor Sea or Bass Strait. Carter says the company has the potential to double its Australian operations and has bought a dive operation to gain entree to the Gulf of Mexico. A further plus is that the company has recently changed tack to offer a full-service inspection, repairs and maintence offering so that its customers can outsource the lot. Carter says Neptune's revenues were $1.5 million in 2006 when it was merely a technology company trying to license its technology but revenues are now expected to grow to $27 million this year and $70 million in 2008.

At last week's prices of about $1.06, Carter says he has it on a 2008 P/E of 14.1, with the potential for more upside.

Reckon (RKN)
<snip>

Reverse Corporation (REF)
<snip>

RR Australia (RRA)
<snip>

Technology one (TNE)
<snip>
 
Thanks Mutley and Son of Baglimit.

That certainly is the best article I have seen on Neptune- a holy grail stock?? Unfortunate timing for those wanting to offload a few, but the ones left in the bottom drawer look very nice !!

Tri-Surv completion may see a rise. The articles in regard to Apache and Woodside's gas projects tend to make me think this could be enormous. But the world is a big place I think there will be countless lucrative opportunities, as Lange said "we haven't even scratched the surface".

;)
 
and 24 hours after those 2 articles appear we see NMS & Apache working together on apache's NWS acreage - no $$$ mentioned, no term, but clearly this is the first evidence that langes plan has worked - full end to end IRM work utilising the businesses bought in to create the new & improved NMS.

the market response was a shock, but theres still evidence of manipulation, so at some stage the brakes will be released, and this one is roaring.
 
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix...ntId=1600738&WebCastId=666487&StreamId=940062

this is the link to cal dives 2nd qtr results webcast - while disappointing for cal dive, they did reveal info relevant to NMS.

theres still about 33% of work being tendered for in the GOM post 05 hurricanes.

margins remain very good in GOM work.

there is a large increase in demand for diving services throughout asia and the middle east, which cal dive expects to participate in thru fraser diving. they compared the growth in subsea infrastructure in asia & middle east to the 70's expansion in the GOM. clearly they will be looking at expanding their workload in this part of the world - do they become a partner of a competitor ???????? we shall see.
 
A little more info on the Apache job...

http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=2&storyid=4216


AUSTRALIA: Australia-listed engineering company Neptune Marine Services secured an integrated subsea services project for Apache-operated Bambra East field, located offshore Western Australia. The workscope includes project management, engineering, fabrication and installation services for Apache's production assets in water depths of no more than 30 metres (98 ft).

Apache plans to begin production from the Bambra East gas field in 2007 by augmenting the production facilities operated under the Harriet Joint Venture. The Bambra field is located in production licence TL/1, about 4.4 kilometres (2.7 miles) from the Harriet Bravo platform. Jackup ENSCO 106 is presently drilling a production well, Bambra-8H/8H L1. The rig will move on to drill on the Bambra East-3 development well in the next few days.

Apache operates the Bambra field with 68.5 percent interest. Partners are Kufpec with 19.27 percent and Australian Tap Oil with 12.22 percent.
 
this is a broker report put out by PATERSONS.

7c divs in 09........nice.

tri surv only days away it seems - reason for the delay? - more value maybe.

happy reading
 

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Hi all,
Pretty good summary. I note that they predict 7 cents/share div when EPS is below this. I would have thought that NMS would have retained the powder for further growth,eg acquisitions.
Also i note that growth is predicted to be slow in 2009 compared to previous years.
Call me cynical but wouldn't they be hoping that some of the gains be lightened and moved to other opportunities?
 
Apache has significant interests in Australia and is expanding, here is their current status, from their website-

http://www.apache-energy.com.au/html/activities.htm

It's apparent that Neptune and Apache are getting along well, considering the scope of work recently awarded to NMS, and the work completed. Apache have a few partnerships with very large players, like themselves, Woodside included. And as also previously stated, NMS have the former Wooodside general manager as one their board members. NMS were predicting MULTI billion dollar work, just how much of that was prediction?, in the Australian market, now it looks like happening. Now Santos/Apache are announcing "feed" project work together, I wonder who is doing that? All in all, looks like perfect timing, joining the six companies with NMS, and already one fully integrated job. Well ?!?! My feeling is that there will be a huge amount of work in the intray soon.

As pointed out by Son of Baglimit elsewhere, here is the Apache/Santos info from the WA business news today-

http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/en-story/1/55781/Santos-Apache-plan-750m-gas-project

As the great statesman Alfred E. Newman said- "what me worry?"

:2twocents
 
Bib said:
Also i note that growth is predicted to be slow in 2009 compared to previous years.
Click to expand...

I noticed the same thing, is this just a conservative guestimate to get some figures for 2009? I haven't seen Lange quoting any figures for 2009 (divvy included) so where has Patersons got them from?

In my opinion, a very conservative view of the future of NMS. :cool:
 
Tri-Surv- At first they were to be acquired so their earnings would be for the whole financial year, as stated by Lange. So we were all waiting 1July07 onwards for the fulfillment of that. Then in the recent quarterly, early August, was the time frame promised. It's now the 15th.

As the above posters said re the earnings forecast and dividends for 09, where do Pattersons get that information from. I'm following everything I can on NMS, but have seen no mention on any announcements or presentations forecasting 09. Maybe it's a mistake, as they surely can't guess. Surely we all have access to current information, so we can trade, not just Pattersons/MBL. If anyone can see the 09 figures on a NMS document, could you please post the link.

Maybe we will be put at ease any day now, let's hope so.

:cautious:
 
Well ... quite a slide this morning down $0.70/share, on no news whatsoever from what I can tell. Making a slight recovery now though, but not much.

I topped up yesterday at around 0.86 ... as it looked to be at a previous level of support (not tested very strongly though, I admit).

Oh well ... this is one stock I want to hold for a while so in for the long haul I guess!
 
yet another promo for neptune is appearing in tomorrows edition of smart investor, amongst an article for Aust companies poised for international success.
 
SOB - surely you will be topping up at these levels? This is one stock that has been 'unfairly punished' and caught up in the hysteria of the crash, i mean correction.
 
Top up at what levels????
60c and falling.....struth!!!!
Talk about being caught up in the hysteria.
Gillette must be doing a roaring trade in blades about now....aren't you glad you're in for the long haul???
 
fleets me ol mate - long time

topped up - yes - when? - last week unfortunately.

not to worry, plenty of other worshippers now on board i hope.

hope you are still with us !!
 
Fascinating turn of events - at noon i'd lost $5k today, at 1pm i'd lost $9k and at 2pm it was back to $5k.

NMS got up off the floor - i'm buying more at 73c. Why not. My average price is still in the 40s....and what has changed for NMS - nothing - just caught up in the storm I think. Now to find some others in the same boat.
 
Still with ya mate for sure.
Twas getting a bit close for comfort for a while tho....still, lots of life in the ole whale yet.
It's not like anything in the Neppy saga has changed for the worse.....just got trampled by the sheep running for the exits.
 
Hey Fleets....only down 5K??
I feel for the guy that purchased 1,000,000 yesterday at 80c.....
I bet his pulse rate was well up today.
 
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