LONDON (Dow Jones)--Ascent Resources has Tuesday entered into an...

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Ascent Resources has Tuesday entered into an agreement with Hardman Resources to acquire two wholly owned subsidiaries, Gabon Investments (Iris Marin) Pty Ltd and Gabon Investments (Themis Marin) Pty Ltd.

These companies hold a 12.86% Participating Interest in the Iris Marin Production Sharing Contract ("PSC") and in the Themis Marin Production Sharing Contract respectively.

The Iris Marin and Themis Marin PSCs cover two shallow water exploration concessions offshore Gabon of 902 km2 and 607 km2 respectively.

Gabon is centrally situated in the West African oil & gas province and has a long history of oil production. It has the third largest reserves and is the fourth biggest producer in the region. Current production from Gabon is approximately 250,000 bopd from its onshore and offshore fields.

Both the Themis Marin and Iris Marin concessions are surrounded by proven oilfields and are close to pipelines and production infrastructure. Since these concessions were awarded in 1999, a 3-D seismic survey has been acquired and from these results a number of drilling locations have been identified. The drilling of the first of two commitment wells is planned for this summer.

Initial consideration for the acquisition will be the issue of 12 million new ordinary shares of Ascent to Hardman. Following completion, Ascent shall reimburse Hardman for $515,765 of past costs. Further payments will be made to Hardman of A$500,000 in the event of successful recovery of hydrocarbon on testing from a well in either of the PSCs and A$700,000 on issue of governmental approval for exploitation of either of the PSCs.


What is this worth to HDR?

Ascent last traded at 6 pounds according to this site:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AST.l

Hardman has 12m shares = 72m pounds = $A175m

Plus A$515,000 cost reimbursement plus, 30% chance of getting another A$1.2m success bonus = $A176m

This is worth about 0.30 a share to HDR.