Trading under the ticker “ADE”, Adelaide Energy, successfully raised $10 million in its initial public offering, as well as $2.5 million worth of oversubscriptions.

Managing director Carl Dorsch said the strong investor support was encouraging, given the outfit was one of only a handful of new oil and gas exploration offerings this year.

“We have a strong first year program of five wells across our exploration acreage in the Cooper and Otway basins in the northeast and southeast of South Australia respectively, and in the Florence Basin in Colorado in the US,” he said.

The company was founded in late 2005 by veteran geophysicist Rod Hollingsworth, founding managing director of Stuart Petroleum.

Adelaide Energy was established to initially re-invent how gas is produced from the Cooper Basin, by using advanced drilling and production techniques, including horizontal and under-balanced drilling, to exploit the tight gas targets.

Since that time the company has expanded its focus.

Drilling is already well underway in its US acreage and the company will begin its first SA drilling campaign this month.