President Energy is an oil and gas company with a long history of not fulfilling its potential. Only now things may have fundamentally changed. It has moved from simply being an idea to actually being a producer. Moreover, its assets are huge with fields in the US, Paraguay and Argentina. Although difficult to value using Stockopedia metrics, the upside could be very substantial.

It's producing some 300 BOPD in the US. Not much by most standards. But it's getting the oil out of the ground and running the operation profitably.

Paraguay is a completely different story. Its acreage is simply enormous, some 8.4 million acres (Apparently it's the size of the US state of Maryland) and it has a large body of seismic evidence gathered over a long period of time to support its optimism. It's now looking for farm-out partners.

As for Argentina, it produces some 2000 BOPD after what appears to be an excellent acquisition from Chevron. In addition, last month it bought two more fields and has just announced that it will begin workovers on five wells within those fields next month. It also pointed out that it has the necessary infrastructure in place to go ahead with production from these wells by the year end if the results are positive.

Something I really like about the company is its focus on generating cash. It has a programme of workovers where it brings back into operation wells that have been shut-in. Basically, it's a lot cheaper and less riskier than a full-on drilling campaign targeting new resources. At the same time, there is the huge potential from farm outs.

Like all these plays, it's clearly not without risks – it's currently experiencing problems with a pumping system that is delaying its production in Argentina. And obviously the price of oil is almost impossible to predict.

Without producing assets the business would be just another explorer looking for the next round of fundraising. However, after entering production mode it might indicate something could be about to take off. It's producing and is aiming to push up production in the near-term and it has some very big irons in the fire. It may also be in the right spot at the right time – Latin America seems to be in the cross hairs of…

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