Oil and Gas Eye Q3 2012

On the Main Market, the company with the best-performing share price in Q3 was Heritage Oil whose price rose 57%. In July, it announced the proposed acquisition of a 45% interest in the producing Oil Mining Lease (OML) 30 in Nigeria with its Nigerian partner Shoreline Power. Heritage says the acquisition is a transformational event which will provide a material change in production levels. It also said it has agreed to sell its 20% interest in the Miran block in the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Genel Energy, which will also loan it US$294m, to be repaid through the transfer to Genel of the entire share capital of the subsidiary of Heritage Oil owning the Miran block.

In July Afren announced that its Simrit-2 exploration well in the Kurdistan region of Iraq had found additional oil and development drilling had started on the Okoro East field offshore Nigeria. It also said a sidetrack of the existing Okoro-5 well had found additional oil volumes. Afren's share price ended Q3 up 30%.

In July, SOCO International announced that the first oil and gas had flowed from the H4 wellhead platform of the Te Giac Trang field in Vietnam, almost a year ahead of the original development plan. SOCO's share price increased 7% over Q3.

In July, Premier Oil announced it had agreed to buy 60% of Rockhopper Exploration's interests in the Falkland Islands, including the Sea Lion discovery. Premier's share price ended Q3 up 2%.

Ophir Energy also saw its share price rise 2% in the three months to end September, during which it reported an increase in the estimates of oil in place in the Tanzania Miza discovery.

In August, Cairn Energy said one of its wholly owned subsidiaries had made a recommended cash offer for AIM listed Nautical Petroleum. The following month it announced the sale of shares in Cairn India, in which it will retain an approximately 10% shareholding. Proceeds will be used to fund ongoing capital requirements. Cairn's share price ended Q3 up 2%.

In September, Essar Energy announced that the Supreme Court of India had passed judgment on repayment of Gujarat sales tax owed by its subsidiary Essar Oil. It will be allowed to repay the balance of US$939m in eight quarterly installments. Essar's share price ended Q3 down 9%.

Tullow Oil suffered a couple of drilling disappointments in Q3, and its share price ended down 8%. In July, it said that, for safety reasons, drilling operations at its Jaguar-1 well in Guyana had ended without reaching their primary objective. In September, it also said drilling on the deeper secondary target of the Mbawa-1 exploration in Kenya had been completed, but hydrocarbons were not found.

BG Group's share price fell by 6% over Q3. In September, it said its Chief Financial Officer would be taking a leave of absence on medical grounds.

FTSE 350 oil and gas performance

Source: Thomson Datastream

« Previous | Next »