Strike oil company

A Listing For Strike Oil Could Come Sooner Rather Than Later.

Unlike a lot of Australian junior and middle-sized explorers, Strike Oil did not go off abroad to find its fortune. One thinks of Black Rock with its interests in the UK and more recently offshore Malta and Africa and of Fusion and Hardman with their activities in West Africa.

Strike has stayed at home. Co-founder and Executive Director Jim Durrant says: "We know the areas, we like the regime and there is good prospectivity in Australia."

The company, formed in 1997, has assembled a portfolio of 11 permits in the the Carnarvon and Cooper Basins in Western Australia as well as in the Eastern states where there are good opportunities for natural gas and coal bed mining. An important point according to Durrant is that the company operated in a counter -cyclical way, assembling the permits when the oil price was on the floor at US$10 a barrel and activity was very low. This means that the company is not over- burdened with debt and is hoping to fund exploration primarily through carried farm outs.

Strike is the operator in seven of the licences, but the current excitement in Australia is over the 50 per cent working interest Santos, a major Australian producer has taken in the VIC/P44 licence in the Otway Basin in Eastern Australia. Santos will become the operator of VIC/P44 by funding the majority cost of a 3-D seismic survey and completing a well at a total estimated programme cost of A$19 million.

The well will be drilled in an area where there have already been some discoveries. Last year a consortium including Woodside and Origin had success with two wells called Thylacine and Geographe close to where Santos will be drilling. Strike has said it is looking at possible reserves of 1 trillion cubic (I tcf) of gas. So the fun is about to begin. The well should start in August. Thereafter Strike has eight other wells it is planning to drill.

The company is public but unlisted. Strike is 30 per cent owned by Perilya Limited, a mining company listed on the ASX. At the moment this is the only means of getting exposure to Strike Oil, but Perilya itself is hoping to merge with another Australian mining company, Ranger Minerals, and this could accelerate Strike's own listing.

Source of article.......http://oil-barrel.com/archives/news_archive/2002/may-2002/strikeoil280502.htm