the age article

Have a read, Barry Fitzgerald sharing his thoughts on the KAR potential listing of its Brazilian assets

http://www.theage.com.au/business/middle-man-makes-sense-of-rspt-standoff-20100609-xu6o.html

KAROON GAS

The decision by Karoon Gas to consider a partial float of its South American oil exploration interests was predictable stuff. It is the sort of thing you would expect from a group that must live in fear of getting taken over on the cheap.

The company's fear is based on its $1.3 billion market cap ($7.34 a share) being less than what Karoon could expect to get in a trade sale of its 40 per cent stake in Poseidon/Kronos gasfield discoveries in the Browse Basin offshore Western Australia.

That means there is nothing in its share price for the South American exploration interests something the South American partial float is aimed at fixing.

Karoon's independent consultant DeGolyer & McNaughton reckon Karoon's Brazilian and Peruvian exploration assets have a risked, mean, net prospective resource potential of 577 million barrels of oil equivalent. The unrisked mean estimate was 2,080 million boe.

Offshore Brazil is one the world's hot spots for big oil finds and stocks listed on the Brazilian stock exchange (Bovespa) have market values to match. Even without a discovery yet being made in the Karoon acreage, local analysts reckon a valuation for 100 per cent of the Brazilian interests could range from $500 million to $1 billion.

If that is the case, Karoon will move quickly with a proposed separate listing. It is to test the waters first with a private seed-capital raising to gauge interest in the listing and also to determine the pricing of a future capital raising that would come with a subsequent listing.

Karoon would hang on to 70 per cent of the South American business which would then be transparently valued, presumably carry Karoon's valuation in its home market higher in the process.