The company, which is still trying sell its Malaysian-based biodiesel subsidiary, recently announced it was now pursuing opportunities in the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

Then on Friday, the Australian Securities Exchange issued Jupiter with a “please explain” notice after the company’s share price peaked at 20c – almost twice what it was worth on April 30.

In its response, Jupiter insisted it had not kept any information from the market that would explain the increase.

However, it did point to a recent announcement that outlined plans to enter Kazakhstan to accumulate “undervalued niche” oil producing assets, as well as prospective exploration acreage.

To help it with this initiative, the company plans to ask a Kazakh engineer to join its board when he visits Perth later this month.

The move was a dramatic turnaround for Jupiter, which only eight months ago was planning to spin-off and list a separate biofuels arm on the ASX.

But over the past 12 months, the biofuels sector has ranked as one of the worst performers on the ASX – a result of lower oil prices and concern over whether it would start competing with food crops.

In January, Jupiter announced it had agreed to sell the subsidiary to FEI Resources to for $750,000. But this arrangement has since fallen by the wayside.

“However, because of the lack of investment interest in the biodiesel sector, we have found it very difficult to get a firm purchaser,” Jupiter said in its last quarterly report.

In the same report, the company announced that after running seismic programs over two Lakes Oil-owned Otway Basin permits – PEP 163 and 164 – the companies have decided not to undertake any further exploration work there.