Today's pick is a real wildcard, but with top connections that could see it go for a decent run within the next three months or so.
Directors and management include former senior executives with Occidental Oil, British Petroleum, Selection Trust and Westpac.
CityView Corporation (ASX code: CVI) is focused on oil and gas projects in two African countries, Angola and Cameroon, neither of which carries triple A ratings for country risk. For that reason, however, both are under-explored and offer enticing potential for modern prospectors.
The company also has a minerals concession area covering 3764sq km in central Angola, within which are two projects, a carbonatite (rare earths, phosphate and niobium) deposit and the Catabola copper-gold prospect, whose surface expression has been mapped over more than 1km. CityView is funding a $US200,000 ($243,700) program of 3000m of core-hole drilling beginning in the first week of September to more than double its interest in this concession to 64%.
CityView had its beginning nearly two decades ago as a Perth real estate developer associated with the late home-builder Les Friday. It later came under the control of Malaysia Mining Corporation as its oil exploration arm with prospects in the Philippines and Indonesia. Nothing much came of those and for years it was largely inactive with a majority of shares held by various Singapore-based investors.
Then, in March 2006, Perth-based Mark Smyth became chief executive and since then many of the Singaporean investors have sold out. (Smyth was company secretary-treasurer of Australian Selection Trust through the 1960s-'70s nickel boom, after which British Petroleum took over the parent Selection Trust in 1974 following the death of that company's chairman Chester Beatty.)
Smyth, being an old Selection Trust hand, swung his attention to Africa, and in June the company farmed into a 20% stake in the 1187sq km offshore Matanda block near the Cameroon capital of Douala. Gulf Oil of the US established proven reserves of 60 million barrels of condensate in the 1980s with estimated potential for as much as 300 million barrels, but pulled out because of low condensate prices then.
Smyth has recruited to CityView one Conrad Maher (a Californian-based former aide to Occidental Petroleum's founder Armand Hammer) as chairman of the advisory board supervising the company's hydrocarbon hopes in both countries, including a feasibility study for a $US50m-$US70m project to produce 4 million barrels of condensate a year plus a modular gas-fired power station to supply Douala, 13km away.
CityView has an issued capital of 263 million shares which, at 10c, would give the company a market capitalisation of $26.3 million. It has no debt and $3.8m cash. Apart from Smyth, non-executive directors are Nik Hoexter, Peter Smith and lawyer Paul de Chazal.
CVI Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
