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"Desperately seeking success"

Thursday, 4 February 2016
Haydn Black

BELEAGUERED Metgasco, which was finally chased out of the Northern Rivers region by anti-CSG activists and a promise of pennies in the dollar from the New South Wales government last year, and cashbox Molopo Energy, are two of just a handful of junior oilers with the fiscal firepower to back new oil and gas plays, but only a limited time in which to back them.

As effective shell companies on the ASX they have just six months from the date they disposed of their last assets to latch onto something else, or the Australian Securities Exchange will suspend the shares from trading.

That means Molopo needs to find a new direction within the next two months, and Metgasco has until mid-year.

Both were once friends, neighbours and pioneers in the NSW CSG business, exploring the Clarence Moreton Basin, and now both have little to show for their investments.

Metgasco, whose shareholders approved the contentious offer of selling the Casino CSG resource and the potential for conventional gas and tight gas in the Greater Mackeller structure, ended its 10 year involvement in NSW CSG with a $25 million payment that enabled to announce a clayton’s profit last year.

Thanks to the cash it gained for a fraction of the value of its not-quite-proven gas in the ground, Metgasco posted a $23.3 million profit last year, and it will pocket a little more from the sale of real estate it purchased in more optimistic days when its dreams were of reinvigorating the region it explored in – assuming it can find a buyer in the economically depressed region.

Metgasco elected to take the money because it considered brawling silks in the court would waste time and money with no guarantee of a better offer.

It is now looking for a new focus, but in the meantime the board under managing director Peter Henderson can point to the company’s accounts for 2015 and say the company ended the year with its ledger in the black.

While it might not have the pipeline to Queensland, the Richmond Valley power station, gas feeding into a reticulated market in the Casino region or any LNG exposure in return for its 50-odd wellbores, Metgasco starts 2016 with a clean slate.

The company is decommissioning the last two wells in the region and will shut down all operations within the first few months of 2016.

By mid-year it hopes to have secured a new focus.

“With Brent oil prices currently at a 12 year low, at about US$30/Bbl, the company is confident that it can secure attractive business opportunities,” the company said.

But that is not a task to be taken lightly.

Molopo sold out of NSW and Queensland CSG early, largely before the activists became concerned. It took the cash and headed off to China, South Africa and the US.

Molopo’s new board says it has looked at 25 investment opportunities since October, and it is still trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.

The junior, which has some $67 million in the bank after a disastrous dalliance in the North American shale plays, is still interested in the oil and gas patch, but could also look at other sectors, which is probably little surprise considering it is little more than a cashbox for its major shareholders like Keybridge Capital.

Only chair and former North West Shelf boss Samantha Tough has any direct oil and gas experience at board level, although advisor Brent Bonadeo has focused on conventional oil and gas opportunities in stable geographies in either the development or production phase.

Like Metgasco, Molopo’s directors believe the declining price of oil is bringing to the table a large number of investment opportunities into the open.