MATT CHAMBERS
THE AUSTRALIAN
JULY 09, 2014 12:00AM
Hi Guys,
I was involved with AQO back from its birth and although it took a few years and some averaging down I done quite well out of it. I've moved on to this listing now and I believe this could be and very profitable med term play. The team led by Kleo have been working overtime the last few years building this company so that it hits the ground running as soon as it lists. IMO we should have a very exciting few months ahead. See you what AQO holders think.
THE ASX will today get its first new petroleum listing in about a year, with the
team that brought us the soon to be taken over South Australian shale company
Ambassador Oil and Gas unveiling their next junior play — American Patriot Oil
and Gas.
Kleo Hatziladas, who gathered the tenements that Ambassador was floated on
in 2011, has acquired ground throughout the Rocky Mountain basin in the US
and brought former Patersons Securities analyst Alexis Clark to head the
company.
David Shaw, whose chairman duties at Ambassador are set to be relieved when
DrillSearch or the less likely US-based outsider Magnum Hunter takes over, will
be non-executive chairman at American Patriot.
The company is slightly different to a host of Australian-based companies
targeting shale riches in the US in that American Patriot plans to apply the
horizontal drilling and fracking techniques that spurred the US shale revolution
to conventional oilfields that have already been produced from.
The company raised just over $8 million in its initial public offering and, if shares
remain at the 20c issue price, will have a market value of about $28m.
Hatziladas and his associates hold about 14 per cent of the company.
The American Patriot model is to buy land at early stages and bring in partners
to drill, thereby not using shareholder money for acquisitions, something
successfully done by the likes of Texas shale play Aurora Oil and Gas, which
was taken out last month by Canada’s Baytex for just under $2 billion.
The company says it will never use shareholders’ funds on exploration, with the
money raised in the offering earmarked for acreage acquisition.
The first project that will be drilled is known as Nothern Star, in Montana, an old
Exxon field where drilling is due to start in the next few months.“Success on
this project should unlock a significant new tight oil resource project with
significant upside to the acreage value from American Patriot’s low-cost entry
point,” Clark said.
The partner is Treasure Exploration, which bought 70 per cent of the project for
the commitment to drill wells, and which American Patriot says is the
subsidiary of a bigger, unnamed private oil and gas company.
Originally published as American Patriot adds to offerings
AQO Price at posting:
35.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Unspecified
