From Spooner on DT Thread...EDITED BY LUKE FORRESTALAfter...

From Spooner on DT Thread...

EDITED BY LUKE FORRESTAL
After raising $11 million in April in a tough IPO market for speccy explorers, Swala Energy appears to be gaining some support among investors drawn by the potential of its acreage in one of the world’s hottest oil and gas exploration regions.

Swala’s more than 15,000 square kilometres of ground lie in the East African rift system, where more than two billion barrels of oil have been discovered in the past few years.
Confidence in Swala is boosted by the quality of its partners, including African exploration specialist Tullow Oil, which has been involved in three successive discoveries in the same trend.

Swala started picking up most of its acreage in onshore Tanzania and Kenya in 2010, before Tullow and Africa Oil made their first discovery in March 2012 at the Ngamia-1 well in Kenya, which triggered a land grab across east Africa.

The size of its footprint in the prized region lags only Africa Oil, Tullow, Afren and Canada’s Vanoil, but so far only initial seismic work has been carried out in the acreage, making Swala a high-risk play for investors.

CEO David Mestres Ridge has a track record in the region, however, having worked with oil explorer Black Marlin Energy during its listing in Toronto in 2010, before it was swallowed up by Afren for $US101 million just months later.
Swala is also planning a listing of its 65 per cent-owned Tanzanian subsidiary on the Dar es Salaam stock exchange on October 1, which is intended to reduce country risk and minimise shareholder dilution for the parent company, which will likely take up shares in the offer.

Swala is also working to secure further permits, including the Eyasi acreage in Tanzania and three blocks in Zambia.
Shares in the minnow climbed above their 20¢ offer price for the first time in early August and reached a record 27¢ on Monday as Swala and Argonaut, which managed the IPO, kicked off an investor roadshow in the eastern states. Argonaut, which holds options in Swala exercisable at 30¢, has a 57¢ price target on the stock.