25 May 2012

Oil boom tempts London flotation candidates

11/03/2011 Robert Tyerman

Budding energy companies are manoeuvring to take advantage of today’s strong oil market by floating in London. Among those planning such a step this year is Hurricane Energy, a company whose several licences in the North Sea include the Lancaster prospect holding an estimated 150 million barrels, worth a gross £11 billion-plus before costs at current crude prices.

Chief executive Dr Robert Trice, a leading expert in oil deposits known as ‘fractured reservoirs’, which are also found in significant quantities in Libya, Egypt, Vietnam and South America, co-founded Hurricane in 2005 with fellow oilman James Hudlestone. The company has two other prospects, Typhoon and Whirlwind in the same West of Shetlands area as Lancaster, as well as onshore licences in Perthshire and Wiltshire.

Dr Trice and his colleagues have already won serious institutional backing for Hurricane as a private company. They have indicated to shareholders they expect to float the company in 2011, a move which would almost certainly be well received.

Elsewhere, Australian entrepreneur Ivan Burgess, former head of Colombia-focused Black Rock Oil & Gas (now AIM-counter Woburn Energy), is assembling a company to raise between $10 million (£6.2 million) and $30 million to exploit oil and gas assets in Morocco, politics permitting. Burgess is understood to have reached heads of agreement with a US group on farming into certain projects and is thought be contemplating a move to AIM or PLUS-quoted, perhaps through a shell company.

Trice and Burgess are not alone in contemplating London floats for young oil and gas hopefuls. Among others thought to be circling the market is Art Milholland, former head of ultimately unsuccessful North Sea play Oilexco.       

Sector: Media

Companies: Woburn Energy

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