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COOPER ENERGY SHARES BRIEFLY SLIP: A few investors may have been alarmed last week as Cooper Energy (ASX code: COE, one of our portfolio stocks, slipped briefly to 63.5c, under the present offer price of new shares to existing holders at 65c each.

The new offer to shareholders of up to $5000 worth of shares to raise $5m, follows a recently approved placement of 84.62 million shares to professional and institutional investors at 65c to raise $55m.

Be assured, the shares fell away in last week's ratty market as existing holders with "ex" entitlement shares bought at cheaper prices sold down to take up their entitlements. If the share slide is repeated, however, new punters may get in cheaper than the existing holders' offer price.

Cooper Energy revealed a very upbeat picture at its recent annual meeting. After producing 256,871 barrels of oil and $21.2m of revenue for 2006-07 for an after-tax profit of $5.5m, managing director Michael Scott predicted production greater than 300,000 barrels for 2007-08.

Cooper shares have traded up from a year's low of 37c to a high of 91c and at last week's close of 65.5c the company carried a market capitalisation of $160m. Although discovery and production have been more certain on the company's properties in Central Australia, its first overseas projects in Indonesia and Tunisia promise much bigger, if potentially riskier targets, to excite the share price. The first Indonesian well, Kurnia No 1 on the island of Madura, in which Cooper has a 30% share, may be completed before the end of December. It has an assessed potential for 200 million barrels of recoverable oil.