Teeling’s toast

It is ironic that wheeler-dealing Irish entrepreneur John Teeling is not a drinker. For the man who presides over six AIM-quoted resource companies from his Dublin seafront office at 162 Clontarf Road also chairs Cooley Distillery and claims that its 250 year-old Locke whiskey distillery in Co Meath is the oldest in the world.

A private company, Cooley, whose products include Tyrconnell malt whiskey, made around £1 million in 2006 – which is more than several of Teeling’s quoted companies have achieved. Their attraction and their risk lie in the oil, gas and mineral potential he and his long-standing colleagues at 162, David Horgan and James Finn, seek to exploit.

Pan Andean Resources, one of the profitable companies in the 162 stable, says it is close to a farm-in deal, with a £1.6 million upfront payment from French oil giant Total’s Spanish subsidiary, Cepsa, over its 90 million-barrel Ucayali Basin oil prospect in Peru. African Diamonds is optimistic about starting production next year from its potentially rich AK6 kimberlite discovery in Botswana.

West African Diamonds is working away at projects in Sierra Leone and Guinea. Petrel Resources has long cultivated the authorities in Iraq and sounds bullish over its Subba and Luhais projects there. Teeling suggests Persian Gold’s early-stage Dustbiglu prospect in Iran ‘could be an elephant’.

‘Those companies go for low geological risk and high political risk,’ quips Teeling, whose Connemara Mining is also finding encouraging indications of zinc in Limerick and Meath. We can all drink to that.