Companies: RPT   

Founded by chairman Frank Timis in 1996 to seek oil and gas opportunities in the old Eastern Bloc, Regal was the first western company to be registered as an oil and gas producer in the Ukraine. It raised £8.8m net of £1.2m expenses through broker Evolution Beeson Gregory in September-October 2002, with the shares immediately reaching a premium to the issue price of 60p. And following a trading update they have been pushed even higher, reflecting success in getting two wells into volume gas production, with another on the way in February. So far these are producing an average 310,000 cubic metres of gas per day, which is being sold at a cut-price $54 per thousand cubic metres to local industry. Regal owns 75% of the field, which is situated in the Dnieper-Donets basin, with the Ukrainian state oil company Chernihiv holding the rest. However it gets upwards of 90% of the revenues in return for paying all of the costs. Some 9bn cubic metres of proven reserves are attributable to Regal, plus 19bn cubic metres of 'probable' reserves. House broker EBG expects a loss of around £370,000 for 2002, but has forecast a significant turnaround to £15m of pre-tax profits in 2003, with EPS of 14.9p. If achieved, the current price will look very cheap.

Regal Petroleum	AIM	£76.72m	36.25p	-0.75p
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Other company articles:
Regal raises £20.5m			04/07/2008
Regal slashes loss			24/06/2008
Exploration Insights by Robert Tyerman			02/06/2008
Regal secures Ukraine rigs			15/05/2008
Discreetly tapping the market			12/02/2008