Small companies, particularly in the resources space, are often forced to frame (or re-frame) events to their advantage. Who then can blame minnow Europa Oil & Gas (EOG), which has spent much of this year flagging the parallels between its Irish Atlantic margin assets and those of Providence Resources, only to gloss over the failure of its peer’s recent drilling campaign in its full-year results?
The chief source of the spin was chairman Colin Bousfield. He painted the lack of recoverable hydrocarbons at the Druid and Drombeg wells in the South Porcupine basin as a source of encouragement, “by proving the presence of sandstone reservoir” in the geological formation connected to two of Europa’s licences. “History shows that new plays are rarely opened up by the first well drilled,” Mr Bousfield opined.
This positive tint on events was enough for Aim investors, who sent shares in Europa 11 per cent higher on the publication of these numbers. Europa continues to engage potential farm-out candidates regarding ongoing discussions with a number of large operators with regards to farming-out Europa’s acreage offshore Ireland. The most immediate prospect, the LO16/19 licence, has already been farmed-out to Cairn Energy (CNE), operator on Providence’s recent well campaign.
FinnCap expects a full-year adjusted pre-tax loss of £0.7m and a loss per share of 0.2p, against losses of £0.7m and 0.2p in 2016.
| EUROPA OIL & GAS (EOG) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 6.25p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 19m | |
| TOUCH: | 6-6.5p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 9.4p | LOW: 4.2p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | NIL | PE RATIO: | N/A | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 2.5p* | NET CASH: | £3.6m | |
| Year to | Turnover | Pre-tax | Earnings | Dividend |
| 31 Jul | (£m) | profit (£m) | per share (p) | per share (p) |
| 2013 | 4.50 | 0.41 | -0.07 | nil |
| 2014 | 3.88 | -0.68 | -0.21 | nil |
| 2015 | 2.21 | -4.13 | -0.86 | nil |
| 2016 | 1.27 | -1.90 | -0.67 | nil |
| 2017 | 1.57 | -0.68 | -0.19 | nil |
| % change | +24 | - | - | - |
| Ex-div: | na | |||
| Payment: | na | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £5.3m, or 1.8p a share. | ||||
