I think this thread on our Cooper asset is worth keeping up to date. This area very hot with the ACN takeover.
Jess - isn't this why you were in!!
Article copied from ICN thread...
Extract from todays SMH.
Drillsearch Energy's $118 million bid for Acer Energy, which saw its price spike 36 per cent yesterday, could be the start of a raft of takeovers for other small cap oil and gas companies in the Cooper Basin. Acer would expand Drillsearch's presence in the region, which straddles the border of Queensland and South Australia, increasing Drillsearch's oil and gas reserves and resources by 69 per cent.
The Cooper Basin could well be the sleeping giant of the oil and gas world, and there are some small caps in the sweet spot. The word to look out for is “fracking”, or hydraulic fracturing - the new technology key to unlocking the potential for “unconventional oil and gas production”. Many energy juniors have invested heavily in their fracking capability, which has led at least one veteran analyst in the sector to conclude that their day will come sooner, rather than later.
“If it works, many trillions of cubic feet of gas will be released," one analyst wrote. "You've got to think that there will be a breakthrough in shale potential over the next year, on a significant scale that turns these little companies into mega companies — or that they'll be taken over along the way.” On the intended takeover by Drillsearch of Acer, the analyst, who works for a major stockbroker and declined to be named, says that the offer price was mainly based on Acer's conventional reserves. If successful, “Drillsearch gets the shale upside for nothing,” he says.
Under the Radar understands that multinational giants in the sector — Total, Shell, Statoil and Hess — are all watching the activity in the Cooper Basin closely.
AKK Price at posting:
3.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held