OILEXCO INC (T-OIL) $7.31 +0.18 ANTRIM ENERGY (T-AEN) $4.64 +0.34 INTL FRONTIER (T-IFR) $1.05 +0.13 GULFSHORES RES. (V-GUL) $0.54 +0.06 There is more news out on the Nicol Field project for Oilexco today and the stock, one that we have followed for a long time, hits new records. One of reasons we have been following this story is for the enthusiastic support given by Haywood analyst Fred Kozak. Needless to say, you would want to be up to date on his latest thoughts and from a research report, he just issued yesterday, he writes the following: “Oilexco—We have increased our target price for this Company to $12.00 from $8.00 in part owing to our increased commodity price outlook for 2007 and in part owing to the fortunes of the Company. Oilexco is now less than three months away from production of approximately 25,000+bbl/d of oil production from the U.K. North Sea. However, with our new oil price for 2007, we now expect that Oilexco will become taxable in the last half of the year. We note that the Company has significant exploration exposure through the end of 2006, as well as exploitation drilling on the Sheryl (formerly Disraeli) prospect, which is likely for production before the end of 2007. We also note that the market in Canada is now paying more attention to the Company, as evidenced by the recent share price increase.”
Which brings us to Antrim Energy. This is a story that we have touched on from time to time over the years, as they manage to come up with, every couple of years, a high risk/ high reward play.
For anyone who has watched Shelton Canada and their lack of success in the Ukraine, you know that if you have a 1 in 3 chance of hitting something big…...that means the odds are your going to miss. But, Antrim on their East Causeway play in the North Sea beat the odds, whether they were 1 in 3 or 1 in 10, and have come up with a significant success. Antrim’s stock has performed amazingly over the last while and it shows you why a person should from time to time look at the high risk/high reward plays. Antrim now has more than 80 million shares outstanding and they had vended out some of the project just before the latest success was announced, so they don’t have the leverage they might have had, but Santa Clause might yet give them another reason to be joyful.
Antrim continues to come up with good success on their natural gas plays in Argentina—yes the same area where Connacher’s Petrolifera has been having some success in oil! The problem for Antrim, though, has been that the Argentineans have (up until recently) been paying just a small fraction for natural gas compared to what North American’s are used to. Now all of a sudden, facing potential shortages for gas, they are starting to pay the Bolivians many times what they were paying domestic producers. Could Antrim get some more joy from there as well? Which gets us back, in a way, to Oilexco. When we look across the horizon of high risk/high reward plays, Art Millholland of Oilexco told us in an interview some time ago, “So if it’s there, it puts us in the stratosphere!” (See June 26, 2006 Late Edition issue that featured “A Brief Interview with Arthur Millholland of Oilexco Inc. ) Those are his words, but now more than a few people are looking at it! Now that there are some EnCana (ECA) people who are involved with the Buzzard play (one of the bigger successes in the North Sea) and are suggesting that the Laurel Valley just might be a Buzzard look-a-like and might have a 1/2 billion barrel target, we can’t think of a play that could be bigger and yes Oilexco is there!
The other two juniors involved are little Gulf Shores Resources and International Frontier…….which gets us to International Frontier, which has had a bump or two over the last while and in fact over its last few years it has had many bumps!
Drilling on their high profile play up in the Canadian North might be delayed a year and their stock has been hit “BIG TIME”! On the other hand, they also have a very significant interest in the North Sea play with Oilexco of 12% plus and if this play hits…...tiny IFR will become one of the stories of the day!
The count down to the Laurel Valley drilling is probably 100 days away or there about, but when they drill it will be one of the stories of the day!
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