Well it’s that time of the week. It’s the Smallcaps Oil & Gas Round up. Takeover news continued this week in the smallcaps Underverse.
Aminex;
Announced the sale of the Somerset Field in Texas. The Company’s Aminex USA, Inc. subsidiary has completed agreements to sell leases and other assets comprising the Somerset Field for a total consideration of $701,600. The sale was comprised of two separate transactions: 1/A portion of the field was sold for $326,600 to Sun Edison which will construct solar farms on the property. 2/The remainder of the field and related assets were sold to Cheap Oil Inc. for $375,000. Cheap Oil assumes responsibility for plugging and abandoning old wells and other facilities where required, estimated by Aminex to cost approximately $2 million. Cheap Oil Inc. will also take over liability for equipment leases. Aminex purchased the Somerset Field assets in 1994 and the property consists of a large number of low-productivity ‘stripper’ wells. Due to the potential abandonment liabilities and a high operating cost per barrel, no reserves value has been attributed to Somerset in recent years.
It was a bad week for Bowleven who confirmed that no detailed discussions were held with Dragon Oil and that no due diligence information was provided by Bowleven to Dragon Oil. The takeover was stopped dead in its tracks. The week ended for Bowleven with another cock-up as Bank of America Merril Lynch RELEASED IN ERROR The ‘BowLeven 8 DD’ announcement released on 29.02.2012 at 11:42am under RNS No 3769Y.
Circle Oil;
Revealed details of a new Competent Persons Report (CPR), including a “highly significant” upgrade of 30% to the 2P recoverable reserves of oil and gas from the 2011 estimates of ultimate recoverable resources. The company said the upgrade reflected the success of its development activities throughout 2011.
Empyrean;
Announced that it had placed 4,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.2p each in the Company at a price of 7.5p per new Ordinary Share raising a gross amount of £300,000. The Placing was by way of a subscription direct to the Company. The funds will be used by the Company to supplement working capital. The Placing Shares have been placed to Asymmetric Fund through one of their investment entities – the Asymmetric Arbitrage Master, LP. Each Placing Share has one attaching warrant that entitles the holder to convert that warrant into one new Ordinary Share at an exercise price of 8.75p. The warrants will expire on 1 March 2015. While today they announced agreement and conclusion of the sale of its 10% interest in the Hercules Project in Texas for total cash consideration of US$1,000,000. Proceeds from the sale of Hercules have been transferred from the purchaser to Empyrean.
Enegi Oil;
Said it has received encouraging news from McCaffrey Consulting Services Ltd, an independent consultant reservoir engineer engaged by the Company. Preliminary analysis, based on transient pressure data captured following the acid injection, indicates the bullhead acid squeeze has been effective. Data suggests that connectivity to the reservoir has improved significantly with the effective producing length of the PaP#1-ST#3 well more than doubling and fluid mobility increasing by approximately nine times. The Well will now be flowed to confirm the veracity of the analysis and the Department of Natural Resources has been informed of the intention to bring the Well back online over the following days. The Well will be flowed back at controlled rates to remove injected chemicals and spent acid whilst ensuring wellbore pressure does not drop below a certain threshold.
Global Petroleum;
Has instigated a move to sell its interest in two Eagle Ford production wells and related leases. The Eagle Ford assets form part of Global’s Leighton project in Texas, US, which lies adjacent to Texon Petroleum’s 7,200 acre Eagle Ford oil project. Texon have hired Albrecht & Associates and RBS Morgans to sell all or part of its Eagle Ford oil project and now Global has followed suit. Global has an interest in 11 producing wells and related leases at Leighton, with nine of them located on the Olmos reservoir. The remaining two are Eagle Ford wells, which were drilled in partnership with Texon.
Ithaca Energy;
The North Sea E&P group informed the market yesterday that it had received unsolicited interest from a number of third parties concerning a possible takeover of the company. This news follows an announcement in January that company had received a confidential, non-binding acquisition proposal. Those discussions are understood to be continuing but the company has also confirmed that other parties are interested and that discussions would take place with all bona fide interested parties with a view to maximising shareholder value.
JKX Oil & Gas;
An E&P group operating in Russia and parts of central and eastern Europe, has signed a sales agreement with Kubangazifikatziya ( That’s a tongue twister!) for the sale of 100% of the gas produced in 2012 from its Koshekhablskoye field in southern Russia. Kubangazifikatziya is a large Krasnodar-based gas trading company which has been active in the wholesale supply of gas and LPG products since 2008. Its industrial clients in the Krasnodar region include Gazprom Mezhregiongaz and the Afipskiy Oil Refinery.
Max Petroleum;
Released an Operational Update. The summation of which is thus; The SAGW-3 appraisal well in the Sagiz West Field has reached a total depth of 1,486 metres, with electric logs indicating 15 metres of net oil pay at depths from 1,201 to 1,254 metres. Reservoir quality appears very good with porosities ranging from 15% to 25%…The NUR-1 well is currently drilling at a depth of approximately 5,300 metres, and is expected to reach total depth by the end of April 2012..Severe weather in Western Kazakhstan. Severe winter weather conditions over the last several weeks including heavy snowfall and high winds, which has on occasion prevented the trucking of oil and the resupply of more remote drilling and production operations in the Blocks A&E Licence area in the Pre-Caspian Region. The inclement weather has not had a material impact on the Company’s operations to date and the Company will continue to monitor the situation and work to mitigate any potential material adverse impact in the future.
The Parkmead Group reported that it has completed the acquisition of four stakes of 20% interest each in Blocks 47/4d, 47/5d, 47/10c and 48/6c in the UK Southern North Sea from Sorgenia E&P (UK) Ltd. These four blocks contain the 47/10-8 gas discovery as well as the large Pharos gas prospect and several significant additional exploration targets. This acquisition follows Parkmead’s recent deal which saw it enter the Platypus gas field and the Possum gas prospect, both nearby in the Southern Gas Basin. It further highlights Parkmead’s strategy of investing in North Sea fields and blocks where the Group’s technical and commercial teams have an extensive working knowledge of the assets.
President Petroleum;
An oil company focused on Argentina, announces that as part of its continued studies on its Puesto Guardian Concession in Argentina, further previously unidentified oil in place has been preliminarily assessed in Cretaceous limestone reservoirs on two more areas in the Concession. The aggregate new oil in place identified by President totals a Mean 16 million barrels, comprising 13 million barrels from the Puesto Guardian field area and 3 million barrels from the Canada Grande field area
Providence Resources;
Confirmed that its eagerly anticipated Barryroe appraisal well has provided “extremely encouraging” high quality light oil within a porous and potentially laterally extensive sandstone system. Operations at the well site are currently ongoing and Providence is now carrying out a well test. The 48/24-10z Barryroe appraisal well lies 100 metres of water, 50km offshore Ireland in Standard Exploration Licence 1/11 in the North Celtic Sea Basin. Providence holds an 80% interest and operatorship of the licence, with the balance held by its partner Lansdowne Oil & Gas. The well was drilled to a final total depth of 7,550 ft and encountered the primary basal sandstone reservoir interval within the pre-drill depth prognosis. Providence said that reservoir development within this sand package was better than expected, with very good correlation of the overall sand packages with the offset 48/24-3 well. Indications of hydrocarbons were seen whilst drilling, and the subsequent results from wire-line logging confirmed the presence of 41ft of net pay, averaging 15% porosity and 87% hydrocarbon saturation, with no indication of a hydrocarbon water contact.
Wessex Exploration;
Tiddler Wessex confirmed that a 50km 2D seismic survey is under way over its PEDL 239 licence on the Isle of Wight. Wessex Exploration holds a 25% interest.
