Companies: MPLE   

Maple Energy is driving a £78 million Peruvian sugar cane project to produce 30 million gallons of ethanol annually.

President and chief executive officer Rex Canon, who floated Maple on AIM last month after raising £27.4 million at 84p, says the sugar cane project will need £41 million of long-term debt and £37 million of equity funding. He claims the land is sufficiently productive to yield 150 tonnes of cane per hectare, ‘twice the yield achieved in Brazil’, a much larger producer.

Maple has operated in Peru since 1994. The company is involved in oil and gas exploration, Canon having pioneered the country’s first natural gas project at Aguaytia in 1998.

Maple retains a 14.3 per cent stake in Aguaytia Energy, an integrated company engaged in oil and gas production, distribution and marketing which accounted for most of the company’s 2006 revenues of £39 million and earnings of £4.3 million. Next year, the company expects to drill in Peru’s Santa Rosa block, a prospect Canon describes as ‘very exciting’.

At the time of flotation, Maple claimed proven and probable reserves of six million barrels of oil and liquids and 45 billion cubic feet of gas, plus possible resources of 518.4 billion barrels of oil and liquids and 106 billion cubic feet of gas, on best estimates. At 110p, the shares, which hit 136p on 1 August, value the company at £89.3 million and have speculative potential.

Maple Energy	AIM	£108.84m	122.00p	-8.00p
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Other company articles:
Maple raises £12.5m			16/05/2008
AIM newcomer in Peru expansion			22/08/2007
Newcomer - Maple Energy			13/07/2007