Executive Summary
Nautical Petroleum plc (LON:NPE) is an oil exploration company with operations in the United Kingdom Continental Shef (UKCS) and in Europe. The company's intention is to secure further heavy oil discoveries in these regions through acquisitions, farm-ins and licensing rounds. It aims to achieve near term production on current assets and enhance crude value and mitigate risk through its relationships. NPE intends to acquire heavy oil exploration blocks with low to moderate commitments and farmout to mitigate portfolio risk.
Company History
- Nautical Petroleum was listed on AIM in April 2005 with 2 licences in the UK North Sea and some processing equipment. The Nautical idea was originated by International Energy Group AG (IEG), which was created in 2004 to hold all asset based business interests of the Masefield Group separately from the trading companies. Masefield AG is a specialised energy trading company.
- The business strategy identified acquisition of discovered heavy oil reserves in the North Sea as a prime supply source for the downstream processed fuel business. An active programme resulted in the acquisition of two licenses in the UKCS. Masefield was also able to acquire ownership of specialised heavy crude oil production processing equipment designed and supplied by Halliburton for the Extended Well Test programme undertaken successfully on the Mariner oil field by ChevronTexaco in 1997/1998.
- All asset based interests acquired in this programme were transferred into IEG during 2004. Subsequently a 75% interest in Nautical Petroleum AG, the owner of licences 9/2b (Kraken) and 3/27a, was transferred into Nautical Holdings in August 2004, together with full ownership of the specialised oil production process equipment. This entity was listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) via Reverse Takeover (RTO) in April 2005.
Current Events
- In August 2005, Alba Resources (Holdings) Limited was acquired with a 26.67% interest in the Mariner Discovery and operatorship of 2 exploration blocks, 9/11c (Mermaid) and 8/25a.
- In December 2005 Nautical signed an agreement to farm in to the St Laurent licence for a 22% interest, which contains the Grenade undeveloped onshore heavy oil field in South West France and is operated by Egdon Resources.
- In June 2006 Nautical signed a comprehensive multi-licence farm-out agreement with Celtic Oil Ltd, part of the SK Corporation, Asia’s leading energy and petrochemical company. Celtic agreed to carry part of Nautical’s exploration expenditures on four blocks, primarily with regard to the drilling of wells in 2007 and 2008.
- In…
