Given that his new oil and gas IPO, Po Valley Energy, drilled its maiden wells out of precious seed capital one would suggest the first lesson he learned was to have access to immediate production.

Lesson two - had he not diplomatically deferred the answers - would be to have access to immediate production with lesson three (you guessed it – access to immediate production) following closely behind.

Learning those lessons was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Masterman was able to draw Macquarie Bank in as a backer and then successfully engineer one of the largest exploration and production floats in the last decade - albeit focused in Italy.

While he was understandably keen to focus on the present, no doubt the long and tortuous path to bring Murrin Murrin into production (which ultimately cost him his job at the time) drove home the lesson it would be easier not to have to build billion dollar processing plants.

“We drill down two kilometres, the gas comes up two kilometres and we put it in a pipeline 50 metres away,” he said.

Only the CH4 float in late 2003, raising $37 million, was a greater grab at the pool of energy investors, and no doubt the recent booming oil price made the October Po Valley roadshow to institutional investors the quick and successful exercise Masterman said it was.

Strong volume saw it close slightly up at $1.06 with 2.8 million shares traded.

The Po Valley float raised $20 million via 20 million ordinary shares at $1 per share. The company has 70 million shares on issue and a market capitalisation of $70 million based on the issue price of $1.

“Po Valley Energy is in great shape. Our first two projects are ready for drilling, detailed evaluation of our new projects is well advanced, and we are located in one of the world's most attractive gas consumption markets,” said Masterman.

Equity Capital Markets Limited (ECM) was the lead manager and underwriter to the offer with Macquarie Equities Limited acting as broker to the offer.