Ann: Request for Trading Halt , page-33

Lauzza re ...for Kingsway
For info from earlier OBL thread see below.$12 m maybe it seems
Hess harnesses Canning Basin in Palmer deal
PUBLISHED: 14 Apr 2012 00:04:28 | UPDATED: 14 Apr 2012 00:04:28

PUBLISHED: 14 Apr 2012 00:04:28 | UPDATED: 14 Apr 2012 00:04:28PUBLISHED: 14 Apr 2012 PRINT EDITION: 14 Apr 2012
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Angela Macdonald-Smith

The independent United States oil company Hess Corp has bought Clive Palmer’s Kingsway Oil, widening its onshore exploration efforts in Australia to the Canning Basin, which has already attracted the attention of global oil major ConocoPhillips.

The deal comes as Mr Palmer builds a stake in another oil explorer, Central Petroleum, in which Hess is also rumoured to be interested.

The Kingsway acquisition, thought to be worth about $12 million, gives Hess two exploration permits covering more than 7800 square kilometres in the far north-west of Western Australia and three other licences under application over a further 54,000 square kilometres.

The licences cover an existing conventional oil discovery, Sally May, thought to hold about 65 million barrels of oil, and are also prospective for shale gas.

Interest has surged in the Canning since Buru Energy’s successes there last year with Mitsubishi, with the Ungani oil find, and the potentially large Valhalla wet gas discovery.

Meanwhile, on the unconventional energy side, ConocoPhillips’ decision to invest in New Standard Energy’s shale gas exploration venture has focused the market on the shale potential of the Canning, where the US Energy Information Administration has estimated recoverable gas at a massive 229 trillion cubic feet.

“There is no question that the Canning has been rediscovered,” said Nigel Harvey, director of junior explorer Oil Basins, which is poised to carry out a production test at its Backreef-1 well.

New York-based Hess, which has been keen to expand in Australia under new boss Howard Paver, has had success in conventional exploration in the Carnarvon Basin, notching up 13 gas finds in its WA-390-P permit. It has been locked in talks with Woodside Petroleum and Chevron on liquefied natural gas commercialisation options.

The company, already a major player in unconventional gas, entered a shale gas exploration venture last year in Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory alongside US-based Falcon Oil & Gas.

Kingsway drilled the Sally May discovery in the EP429 licence in 2005. Prospective resources are estimated at between 2 million and 139 million barrels. The mean estimate is 65 million barrels.

Total prospective resources for Kingsway are 272 million barrels, according to the website of Mr?Palmer’s Mineralogy company.

It is understood Mr Palmer owned just 50 per cent of Kingsway, which may have been a stumbling block to his investment plans.

Mr Palmer failed in a bid to prevent Central Petroleum finalising an $11 million placement during the week, but is still believed to be interested in raising his 4 per cent stake. Interest in Central has surged since it reported its Surprise-1 discovery in the Amadeus Basin in January. Then managing director John Heugh described it as the most significant onshore oil find outside the Cooper Basin for 50 years.

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