www.aurelianoil.com
Aurelian Oil & Gas PLC, was founded in December 2002, and is focused on the re-emerging Central and Eastern European oil and gas markets, the oldest producing oil province in the world.
Current projects span the region from Poland to Bulgaria, with production in Romania, a deep appraisal well drilled on a large structure in Poland in March 2007 to be developed with a further horizontal well to be drilled in 2010, together with exciting exploration prospects including projects in four countries, Romania (4 blocks), Slovakia (3 blocks), Bulgaria (2 blocks) and Poland (14 blocks). Aurelian is the operator in all of these except Bulgaria.
Aurelian Oil & Gas sets up JV with state owned PGNiG over Polish concessions
Aurelian Oil & Gas (AIM: AUL) has entered a strategic partnership agreement with Polish state oil and gas company Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo S.A. (PGNiG) to set up a joint venture (JV) explore the company’s six concessions in Western Carpathians.
Under the terms of the agreement, PGNiG will gain a 40% participating interest in Karpaty West and a 20% participating interest in Karpaty East and provide the JV with access to their extensive data base, comprising wells in the region and approximately 2,000 km (kilometres) of seismic data, which would cost US$40 million to replicate.
Aurelian, which will hold the balance of interests and continue acting as operator, will reprocess and interpret this data as the first part of the ongoing programme, which is expected to lead to the acquisition of new seismic in the second half of 2010.
Aurelian said the JV would benefit from PGNiG’s “substantial history and experience” within the “very prospective” Karpaty area, where the state owned company has other oil and gas fields.
“The provision of their data base and access to their long experience in the region will undoubtedly accelerate our programmes for exploring the region... with PGNiG's knowledge of the area and unrivalled expertise, Aurelian looks forward to working with them to unlock the reserves in concessions we hold there,” said Chief Executive of Aurelian Rowen Bainbridge.
The Karpaty West and East concessions cover 2,230 sq km (square kilometres) and 1,296 sq km respectively in the prospective trend of the western Polish Carpathians. Aurelian also partners PGNiG, with a 25% interest and PGNiG as operator, in the Bieszczady blocks, covering a further 3,547 sq km in the eastern Polish Carpathians.
Aurelian said its union with PGNiG has validated the exploration potential it saw in the Polish Carpathian Fold Belt, which it said was one of the remaining areas where modern seismic and other technologies are yet to be fully deployed, while the Carpathians as a whole have produced 14 bboe (billion barrels of oil equivalent).
The company now partners PGNiG in over one-third of the whole of the Polish Carpathian Fold Belt and holds adjacent acreage on the Slovakian side of the border.
Broker Jefferies International raised its price target on Aurelian Oil & Gas (AIM: AUL) to 58 pence earlier this month after the Eastern Europe focused junior’s actual market value of 30 pence per share eclipsed the old target of 21 pence, after a competent persons report (CPR) revealed greater exploration potential than previously recognized.
An independent audit of Aurelian's acreage revealed greater exploration potential than previously thought with material structures identified in three blocks in Poland and Slovakia. The updated NAV (net asset value) and estimate included prospects to be targeted in the next two years that are worth 63 pence per share risked.
Shares in Aurelian rose 4.5% on the news.
