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Molopo Energy believes it already has a company-making asset in the Wolfcamp acreage in West Texas, but it won’t say no to another.

The ASX-listed oil company is in “soft discussions” on a number of possible acquisition opportunities, although in the first quarter of the year it rejected as many as 15 proposals, said Tim Granger, Molopo’s Calgary-based chief executive officer and managing director.

“We are scouting around,” Mr. Granger said in an interview between meeting Australia-based investors and analysts, adding the company wasn’t about to rush into a deal.

Prospective targets must be in North America and in oil, and would have to compete with the scale of the Wolfcamp assets, he said.

Mr. Granger took on the role of CEO in January in a move that emphasized the company’s shift in focus to the U.S. and Canada. The company’s Australian assets are currently on the block, and Molopo’s board is keen to explore a secondary listing in North America, possibly on the Toronto stock exchange.

Molopo in April lifted its capital investment program for this year to 98 million Australian dollars (US$98.5 million) from a previous estimate of just A$36 million, and said it was aiming to produce 2,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of December from 215 barrels a day in the first quarter. The company has contracted a rig in Texas for a year to support an expanded drilling program and six new wells in the Permian Basin, and Mr. Granger said the focus for the company is on continued strong drill results.

In Australia, there has been a lot of “tire kicking” of Molopo’s coal-bed methane assets in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, but the number of serious suitors has been narrowed down and negotiations continue. “We’ve got the right players in the room now,” Mr. Granger said.

Molopo in December extended the formal sales process for the assets, and at the time said it expected negotiations to be completed in the first quarter of 2012. Mr. Granger said there is no pressure to sell, since the North American exploration and development plans will be funded from cash reserves that should leave the company with a cash balance of roughly A$25 million at the end of the year.

The company has been extending its exploration holdings in the Bakken shale formation in Saskatchewan and the Permian Basin, and in April agreed to buy its partner’s 22% interest in the Fiesta project for US$9 million to give it full control and take its holdings to about 25,000 acres in the Permian.

Molopo also is sitting with roughly 1.4 million acres in Quebec, which Mr. Granger said is essentially an option on gas while is development is frozen under a provincial moratorium on shale development.

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