Gasbagging with confidence http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article Tuesday, July 31, 2007
We've passed the 100% gain mark for the year - and we could be on to a gusher with our decision to buy into Australia's best gas-for-oil prospect. Last week's market shakeout delivered a great opportunity to buy Central Petroleum Ltd (ASX code: CTP) ahead of a roadshow beginning in Sydney this week to talk up the stock to potential investors.
Central has a top-rated board and is the biggest onshore hydrocarbons tenement holder in Australia. Its prospective ground totals 230,000sq km covering the Amadeus and Pedirka basins, which straddle the southern part of the Northern Territory from the Queensland border into Western Australia.
So far, 200 drilling targets have been identified, but for decades this vast region has been sparsely explored because there was no viable gas reserves market. That is about to change with record high oil prices likely to open the way for a gas-to-liquids (GTL) conversion plant to transform the commercial potential of the region. It's expected the company needs to raise $10m over the next 12 months to drill up to six wells on targets with a hopeful upside of 300 million barrels of recoverable oil to establish an early cashflow. That's why managing director John Heugh is doing the rounds in Sydney this week with the support of enthusiastic stockbroking backer Martin Place Securities. Heugh is a petroleum geologist previously with Santos, Ampolex, WMC and Kufpec. Chairman Dr Henry Askin is a geophysicist and former Shell Australia exploration director and Shell global seismic manager. Other directors are Bill Dunmore (a reservoir engineer turned banker with HBOS, Rothschild, Dresdner Kleinwort, Unocal and BHP) and accountant-company secretary Richard Faull.
Central Petroleum listed on the ASX in March, 2006, having started putting together its land package in 1998, when oil was $US12 a barrel and there was no competition for the remote area. Its tenements surround the Santos-Magellan-operated Mereenie oilfield and their declining Palm Valley gasfield. Those companies hold zero exploration acreage in the area. Central's tenements are assessed as having potential to yield more than 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent. If this is proved, a pre-feasibility study suggests a 140,000bls per day GTL plant could operate for 50 years with a projected break-even at $US30 a barrel, less than half current prices. At 20.5c Central carries a market capitalisation of $31.4m and has $5.5m in remaining cash after spending nearly $3m on recent seismic surveys. If its projections stack up, it should have no trouble attracting majors to farm-in.
CTP Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
