Yesterday Bounty called a trading halt that was to remain in force until the opening of trading today or such time as the company had made an announcement.

Fontaine wants to remove Bounty directors Leith Wale and Didier Murcia and replace them with two people related to the Drillsearch group, Graham Reveleigh and Charles Ross, according to a letter he sent to shareholders.

Reveleigh and Ross are directors of Drillsearch’s Canadian subsidiary Circumpacific Energy. Ross is a Canadian finance and marketing consultant; Reveleigh is a mining geological consultant based in Cairns, Queensland.

Since June, Drillsearch has bought almost 4.5 million shares in Bounty worth more than $425,000. The Drillsearch group now has more than 12 million shares in Bounty and 8.24% voting power.

Fontaine – who is still a director of Bounty – is also a major shareholder. He has dispatched to all the company’s members and directors documents calling a general meeting to be held in Perth on November 17 for the purpose of changing the board.

“Drillsearch has agreed to support Mr Fontaine’s efforts to restructure the Bounty Board and accordingly, has become a substantial shareholder of Bounty,” Drillsearch managing director Philip Kelso said in a statement to the ASX.

Tom Fontaine said he had been instructed not to comment at this stage. Drillsearch did not return EnergyReview.net's calls.

Bounty managing director Laurence Roe told EnergyReview.net he was unable to comment.

"We will be releasing a statement soon but until then we can't say anything," he said.