Companies: BOR    FOGL   

AIM dealings start soon in Borders & Southern Petroleum, chaired by investment banker Harry Dobson, which has raised £9.1 million at 20p to develop Falkland Islands oil licences.

Dobson, senior partner of Yorkton Securities, whose other chairmanships include AIM counters Kirkland Lake Gold and Rambler Metals, has helped steer Borders & Southern from its formation last year to its placing, handled by Ocean Equities, writes Robert Tyerman. This puts a value of £25.5 million on the company.

Headed by chief executive Howard Obee, a former senior geologist at BHP Billiton, Borders has been granted 80 exploration blocks between 135 km and 325 km offshore of the Falklands, whose prospects it has evaluated. The company expects to complete a 2D seismic programme over the area next month.

With a board exuding resources and financial experience, Borders looks a worthy contender for punters’ favour, as long as support for the sector recovers from recent shocks. Dobson, who recently described the Rambler funding as ‘the easiest money I have ever raised’, has now joined the stampede for hydrocarbons in the South Atlantic, where another AIM play Falkland Oil & Gas reckons its own licence areas, covering an expanse bigger than the North Sea, could generate 1.25 billion barrels and possibly much more.

John Armstrong, the experienced Australian oilman who is executive chairman of Falkland, says oil majors have already sought to sound out the company, where RAB Capital’s funds have 31 per cent, about its prospects. He says ‘it is like being in the North Sea in the 1960s only with modern drilling techniques.’

At 99p, Falkland Oil could well repay a punt, if market sentiment allows.