Dublin-headquartered Oil & Gas raises $1.4m in share placings

A Dublin-based oil exploration company that is looking to be re-listed has told shareholders it has raised $1.4 million in share placings over the last nine weeks and is in a position to pay its administrative and exploration costs for the coming year.

US Oil&Gas was formerly listed on the Danish-regulated GXG market, which closed in August of last year. It is in the process of finding a new market where its shares can be traded, chairman and chief executive Brian McDonnell told shareholders at today’s AGM.

The company has an interest in oil exploration in Hot Creek Valley in Nevada, in the US. Incorporated in 2009, it was for a time listed on the Plus market in London, before seeing trading in its shares suspended in 2011, with the operators citing a “disorderly market”. The company was delisted the following year.

The company’s shares then began to trade on GXG, a tertiary market considered to be less-regulated than Plus. In December 2014 trading in the shares was suspended following certain allegations. Trading resumed in May of last year following a due diligence process, but the market itself closed the following August.

Mr McDonnell said it was not the case that the company had raised money but was not going to drill, a summary of the company's position that was put to the meeting by solicitor Peter Wilson, speaking from the floor and representing shareholder Desmond Murray, whom he said had 117,000 shares but could not be present.

Mr McDonnell said the company has not as yet addressed the cost of drilling. The funds held by the company are “at the threshold of what is required for drilling.” The plan was to carefully analyse the data available before proceeding to drilling.

Mr Wilson said the Plus market had queried whether Mr McDonnell had sought to make announcements without the approval of his board. Mr McDonnell said these were allegations contained in a 2011 letter from the operators of Plus for which there was no substance. The Financial Services Authority concluded these were anonymous allegations and there was nothing to investigate, he said.

The re-election of Mr McDonnell, the approval of the 2015 accounts, and other resolutions were all approved by way of show of hands, with few votes against. Figures released to the meeting showed that if the proxy votes had been counted, the results also would have been overwhelmingly in favour of the resolutions.

Mr McDonnell said that since “our discovery” in 2013, the company had wanted to find a partner but the process had proven to be difficult, in part because of the allegations that led to the suspension of trading of the company’s shares on GXG. “The disruptive allegations of these people have slowed us down,” he said, but they had not stopped the company with continuing its efforts in Hot Creek Valley. He praised the “resilience” of the shareholders.

He said that if the Hot Creek findings had shown “proved reserves” the process of finding a partner would have been much easier. Exploration in Nevada was seen as “high risk”, but conventional oil exploration was now “back in fashion” having been affected by the popularity of shale competition.

He said the company has a “significant discovery” but there was no guarantee of success. The company would proceed cautiously. Mr McDonnell, who owns in excess of eight per cent of the company’s shares, said the company wanted to analyse the data it had so as to reduce the risks of the drilling.