Westmount Energy

Westmount has interests in Aim companies Fusion Oil & Gas, Desire Petroleum and Sterling Energy, in addition to a 14.8% stake in unquoted Eclipse Energy and a tiny royalty interest in the North Sea Buchan oil field. Results for the six months to December showed turnover of £67,428 from the latter, resulting in a £138,216 pre-tax loss. This is small beer, but the company will probably need to sell of some of its investments because it had akmost run out of cash by the end of the year. Its holdings have an aggregate current value of £6.8m, £4.9m higher than their balance sheet valuation. With net assets at £2m, the net worth of the company is more like £7m, quite a premium to the current market value. But investors should not invest in the share for this reason, as there is no intention to sell everything and return cash to shareholders. Instead, the aim is to make large returns on investments made. Fusion probably offers the best bet in this respect, given the success of a drilling programme offshore Mauritania that it has been participating in over the past few years, plus its interests in other exploration licneces in the same region.

Sector: Oil & Gas Producers

Companies: Westmount Energy

Market cap: £4.8m

Share price: 35.5p

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