Aorere Kotuku oil interests part of Mosman London listing

27 January 2014

Aorere Kotuku oil interests part of Mosman London listing

Aorere Resources will hold an 11.4% shareholding in a London AIM-listed company, Mosman Oil and Gas, if Mosman is able to raise £2.5 million in capital.

The capital raising is currently underway and listing will occur once it is raised.

This follows the sale of the West Coast Kotuku oil seeps petroleum exploration permit to Mosman Oil and Gas Ltd late last year. The deal gives Aorere the shareholding and a royalty for 2% of net sales revenue from the permit in the event of successful development.

Aorere chairman Dene Biddlecombe said the board was excited by the potential for the permit and investment in Mosman, which also holds 25% of a West Australian onshore oil and gas permit application.
The Mosman AIM listing is well advanced and its listing is expected in the second half of February.

Mr Biddlecombe said a competent person’s report by Moyes and Co commissioned for the listing had two interesting findings:

• The permit has hydrocarbon potential in deeper structural and stratigraphic plays to the west and north of the Kotuku seeps where the hydrocarbon kitchens are mapped.

• The permit has the necessary ingredients to suggest accumulations of oil could be present, particularly at deeper levels. The project area is dominated by the Kotuku anticline and 22 leads and prospects have been mapped over the feature. The shallow nature of many of the structures mapped is favourable for cost effective drilling.

Page 28 of the report also sets out the “prospective resources” at the permit. These suggest in terms of unrisked recoverable oil within four reservoirs at the permit there is a:
• 90% probability of 4.8 MSTB (million stock tank barrels)
• 50% probability of 15.6 MSTB.
• 10% probability of 59.2 MSTB.

These are estimates only and should be considered in the full context of the competent person’s report. In particular the above must be considered in the context of the definition of “prospective resources” in the report which says:

"Prospective resources are estimated volumes associated with undiscovered accumulations. These represent quantities of petroleum which are estimated, as of a given date, to be potentially recoverable from oil and gas deposits identified on the basis of indirect evidence but which have not yet been drilled. This class represents a higher risk than contingent resources since the risk of discovery is also added. For prospective resources to become classified as contingent resources, hydrocarbons must be discovered, the accumulations must be further evaluated and an estimate of quantities that would be recoverable under appropriate development projects prepared."

Perth-based Mosman plans to drill two onshore wells in the coming months at the Kotuku prospect on the West Coast.

“This will be a significant investment by the permit holders in the West Coast economy,” according to Mr Biddlecombe. “We remain hopeful of a modest oil strike which may be the start of a new oil and gas industry on the West Coast. As well as being great news for our shareholders, it would provide a fantastic boost to the local economy.”

Mosman, backed by European, Australian and Asian investors, brings extensive international experience in the oil and gas exploration sector.

ENDS

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