Atome Energy

[bruncher]

I took a nibble in February when the price was well below the IPO

This is what they claim to be about:

"Atome Energy PLC is a United Kingdom-based green hydrogen and ammonia production company. The Company is engaged in production and distribution of green hydrogen and ammonia."

The price has climbed 60% in the last few weeks which I'm guessing may be to do with the war in Ukraine which has I believe interrupted ammonia supplies used in agricultural fertilisers. But as far as I know the company is not yet producing anything.

[bruncher]

The share price has gone much higher in the last couple of weeks.

ATOME was originally spun out of President Energy which still owns 28% of ATOME. I haven't done the calculations, but wondering if buying President may be a cheaper way of buying ATOME as the SP of President has not gone up as much as many other oil companies recently following the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.

I hold a small amount of shares in both companies

[bruncher]

I'm still holding my tiny investment, but I'm losing confidence in the largest shareholder (from which ATOME was spun off). They have recently changed their name from President Energy to Molecular Energies. The rebranding exercise seems like an expensive distraction and very pretentious - atoms and molecules. The SP has plumetted; they should have spent the money on something useful, like a share buyback or dividend. Reminds me of Abrdn.

Many well known companies now getting into hydrogen including Rolls Royce with its recent purchase of a majority stake in Hoeller Electrolyzer GmbH.

I have recently taken a nibble of RR

[Hallucigenia]

I'm still holding my tiny investment, but I'm losing confidence in the largest shareholder (from which ATOME was spun off). They have recently changed their name from President Energy to Molecular Energies. The rebranding exercise seems like an expensive distraction and very pretentious - atoms and molecules. The SP has plumetted; they should have spent the money on something useful, like a share buyback or dividend. Reminds me of Abrdn.

Rebranding a small company doesn't cost that much, any return to shareholders would be risible. But a lot of oilies are rebranding themselves as "energy" companies to avoid the ESG stigma of institutions holding something that looks too much like an oil company or has too much history associated with it.

But you do understand President's basic problem, don't you? Namely that they're throwing out >$1m/month of free cash flow, but it's almost all in Argentina and they can't get it out at the moment due to currency controls. Which is why they're trying to build alternative businesses in Argentina - and as it happens lithium in Argentina is a bit of a hotspot at the moment so it makes sense for them to use their local contacts. And so if they're being forced to do that, it makes sense to brand appropriately - there's plenty worse out there, trust me.

Still, it's interesting that despite not knowing basics about President like its currency control problems, you think you know better than Peter Levine who built Imperial Energy into a multi-billion company.

[bruncher]

I'm still holding my tiny investment, but I'm losing confidence in the largest shareholder (from which ATOME was spun off). They have recently changed their name from President Energy to Molecular Energies. The rebranding exercise seems like an expensive distraction and very pretentious - atoms and molecules. The SP has plumetted; they should have spent the money on something useful, like a share buyback or dividend. Reminds me of Abrdn.

Rebranding a small company doesn't cost that much, any return to shareholders would be risible. But a lot of oilies are rebranding themselves as "energy" companies to avoid the ESG stigma of institutions holding something that looks too much like an oil company or has too much history associated with it.

But you do understand President's basic problem, don't you? Namely that they're throwing out >$1m/month of free cash flow, but it's almost all in Argentina and they can't get it out at the moment due to currency controls. Which is why they're trying to build alternative businesses in Argentina - and as it happens lithium in Argentina is a bit of a hotspot at the moment so it makes sense for them to use their local contacts. And so if they're being forced to do that, it makes sense to brand appropriately - there's plenty worse out there, trust me.

Still, it's interesting that despite not knowing basics about President like its currency control problems, you think you know better than Peter Levine who built Imperial Energy into a multi-billion company.

If Levine and co know so much, why did their SP sink so low that they had to offer a one for 200 share 'consolidation' ? This in the middle of an oil shortage!

A return to shareholders might have been 'risible', but the SP was so low they could have repurchased millions - rather than restructuring and and rebranding - which hasn't stopped the share price decline, merely provided some superficial camouflage. Name-dropping Trafigura in every press release doesn't seem to help either.

And the name of their new Green House Capital Division - very original and persuasive.

I'm sure Levine's salary hasn't suffered too much, and the family members also on the payroll.

[Hallucigenia]

If Levine and co know so much, why did their SP sink so low that they had to offer a one for 200 share 'consolidation' ? This in the middle of an oil shortage!

The short answer is - they didn't "have to" consolidate by 200:1, but it's one way to help the company change perceptions. "Oil shortage" sounds like you're thinking in terms of the last few months, but they were at 4p at the start of 2016, since when we've had sub-$30 oil and a lot of small oilies have struggled, depending for survival on taking on lots of debt and giving away equity cheaply in the face of climate concerns. It's been tough. I've not followed President closely but clearly not being able to move money out of Argentina is a pretty major problem, and you only have to look at similar companies to see that based on the stuff they can control, they should be valued much higher. Taking two random companies, Arrow have about the same production in Colombia and have 4x the market cap (and arguably look kinda cheap even so), Petrotal have 6x the production in Peru and have 40x the market cap.

But personally I wish more companies would consolidate - especially given the history of the last few years there's far too many small oil companies with stupidly small shareprices, if I ruled the LSE I would have something more like the New York approach, force companies to consolidate if their shareprice got below 50p or so for a prolonged time. In this case President didn't have to do it, but it just makes them look more credible and helps wash away the past history.

A return to shareholders might have been 'risible', but the SP was so low they could have repurchased millions - rather than restructuring and and rebranding

How much do you think a new logo and some routine legals cost? £20k? £40k? How much difference do you think a buyback of £40k is going to make? I think there's a fair argument that with Levine aged 66 and so associated with the President name, then even without the new ventures it would make sense to make a clean break with a past that has not been successful for shareholders who were no doubt hoping for another Imperial based on the Levine connection.

I'm sure Levine's salary hasn't suffered too much, and the family members also on the payroll.

With 29% of the company, nobody has suffered more than him from a financial involvement with President. What is it, every 15p (in new money) off the shareprice costs him more than his entire salary? Something like that - and there's been plenty of 15p drops along the way. I think his original investment in then-Meridian was at 25p, so 5000p in new money?

[bruncher]

If Levine and co know so much, why did their SP sink so low that they had to offer a one for 200 share 'consolidation' ? This in the middle of an oil shortage!

The short answer is - they didn't "have to" consolidate by 200:1, but it's one way to help the company change perceptions. "Oil shortage" sounds like you're thinking in terms of the last few months, but they were at 4p at the start of 2016, since when we've had sub-$30 oil and a lot of small oilies have struggled, depending for survival on taking on lots of debt and giving away equity cheaply in the face of climate concerns. It's been tough. I've not followed President closely but clearly not being able to move money out of Argentina is a pretty major problem, and you only have to look at similar companies to see that based on the stuff they can control, they should be valued much higher. Taking two random companies, Arrow have about the same production in Colombia and have 4x the market cap (and arguably look kinda cheap even so), Petrotal have 6x the production in Peru and have 40x the market cap.

But personally I wish more companies would consolidate - especially given the history of the last few years there's far too many small oil companies with stupidly small shareprices, if I ruled the LSE I would have something more like the New York approach, force companies to consolidate if their shareprice got below 50p or so for a prolonged time. In this case President didn't have to do it, but it just makes them look more credible and helps wash away the past history.

A return to shareholders might have been 'risible', but the SP was so low they could have repurchased millions - rather than restructuring and and rebranding

How much do you think a new logo and some routine legals cost? £20k? £40k? How much difference do you think a buyback of £40k is going to make? I think there's a fair argument that with Levine aged 66 and so associated with the President name, then even without the new ventures it would make sense to make a clean break with a past that has not been successful for shareholders who were no doubt hoping for another Imperial based on the Levine connection.

I'm sure Levine's salary hasn't suffered too much, and the family members also on the payroll.

With 29% of the company, nobody has suffered more than him from a financial involvement with President. What is it, every 15p (in new money) off the shareprice costs him more than his entire salary? Something like that - and there's been plenty of 15p drops along the way. I think his original investment in then-Meridian was at 25p, so 5000p in new money?

I this instance I look forward to being proved wrong, and making lots of money.

[bruncher]

Extract from RNS

Molecular Energies PLC (AIM: MEN), the international energy company announces the formation of Dual Fuel Limited a new joint venture for its Green House Capital division.
Highlights
· Dual Fuel Limited ("DFL") has been incorporated to provide an engineering to implementation solution for the conversion of commercial diesel engines to run on a diesel and hydrogen mix

This is new to me, never heard of diesel hydrogen mix before today.

[Hallucigenia]

This is new to me, never heard of diesel hydrogen mix before today.

It's an idea that's been kicking around for a while but AIUI the big problem is that you get higher NOx pollution unless you do clever things like this Aussie group.

G-volution came out of Cranfield and are best known for converting diesel trains to use a mix of diesel and methane. I wonder why they're less interested in natural gas right now? Their pitch is that they're a relatively simple conversion using an auxiliary ECU, which makes me think that they will face the NOx problem - this is the page about their technology :
https://www.g-volution.co.uk/site/g-volution-optimiser

I find it hard to get too excited about this kind of thing as it can only be an interim figleaf for Western companies to claim "Oooh look, we have hydrogen 'powered' vehicles working in our mine etc" - but the hopeless energy density of hydrogen and the difficulty in storing meaningful amounts of it means that it will only be suitable for niche applications.

One other thing - "Dual Fuel Limited" is a terrible name if you want to stand out on Google, it will be buried amongst lots of companies selling gas and electricity....

[bruncher]

I'm still holding my tiny investment, but I'm losing confidence in the largest shareholder (from which ATOME was spun off). They have recently changed their name from President Energy to Molecular Energies. The rebranding exercise seems like an expensive distraction and very pretentious - atoms and molecules. The SP has plumetted; they should have spent the money on something useful, like a share buyback or dividend. Reminds me of Abrdn.

Rebranding a small company doesn't cost that much, any return to shareholders would be risible. But a lot of oilies are rebranding themselves as "energy" companies to avoid the ESG stigma of institutions holding something that looks too much like an oil company or has too much history associated with it.

But you do understand President's basic problem, don't you? Namely that they're throwing out >$1m/month of free cash flow, but it's almost all in Argentina and they can't get it out at the moment due to currency controls. Which is why they're trying to build alternative businesses in Argentina - and as it happens lithium in Argentina is a bit of a hotspot at the moment so it makes sense for them to use their local contacts. And so if they're being forced to do that, it makes sense to brand appropriately - there's plenty worse out there, trust me.

Still, it's interesting that despite not knowing basics about President like its currency control problems, you think you know better than Peter Levine who built Imperial Energy into a multi-billion company.

Interesting that Molecular Energies (Previously known as President) sold their Argentinian assets this year because of currency controls. Great timing for the new owners (Peter Levine) as it looks like Argentina is about to open up to full-blooded capitalism:

Javier Milei, a radical libertarian economist and first-term congressman, has won a decisive victory in Argentina’s presidential election, vowing “drastic” changes to the country’s economic strategy amid its worst crisis in two decades.

https://www.ft.com/content/38f718d3-028 ... 5c19d65cb0