Conventional financial results are a sideshow for oil and gas explorer San Leon Energy – it was merely accounting changes that caused the group to swing into the black – a working interest in the Barryroe licence in the Celtic Sea was converted into a net profit interest, triggering a change in valuation.
It is recent exploration results that are much more pertinent. San Leon drilled three wells this year with major partner Talisman Energy targeting shale gas in Poland’s northern Baltic Basin – and while the holes weren’t exactly home-runs, the results have been encouraging enough for the companies to plan a future flow testing programme for spring 2013, including vertical fracking and possibly horizontal drilling with multi-stage fracking.
What’s more, San Leon has made a large tight gas find in the Carboniferous Basin of southern Poland, where it is working alone and controls a 100 per cent interest. San Leon’s Siciny-2 well originally targeted shale gas – which it appears to have also found in decent quantities – but discovered much lower-hanging fruit in the form of two tight gas reservoirs, on which it will start doing pressure tests in a few weeks as well as a vertical frack later this summer.
SAN LEON ENERGY (SLE) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 9p | MARKET VALUE: | £104m | |
| TOUCH: | 9.0-9.1p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 29p | LOW: 6.75p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | nil | PE RATIO: | 6 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 17¢* | NET CASH: | €18.3m | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (€m) | Pre-tax profit (€m) | Earnings per share (¢) | Dividend per share (¢) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | nil | 0.17 | 0.73 | nil |
| 2008 | nil | -3.18 | -1.28 | nil |
| 2009 | nil | -5.52 | -1.92 | nil |
| 2010 | 0.59 | -3.98 | -1.02 | nil |
| 2011 | 1.04 | 15.64 | 1.85 | nil |
| % change | +76 | - | - | - |
Ex-div:- Payment:- *Includes intangible assets of €140m, or 12¢ a share £1=€1.25 | ||||
