In a statement yesterday, the Perth-based company said it was entering 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 Kazakh-educated engineer Erkin Svanbaev to join its board when he visits Perth later this month.

“He is currently responsible for the export of over 1 million barrels of crude per month from Kazakhstan and the board believes that he will be of great value in assisting [Jupiter in] monetising any future discoveries,” the company said.

Jupiter said current Kazakh transaction multiples for larger assets are about $US10 per barrel for proven (1P) reserves and around $US7/bbl for proven and probable (2P) reserves.

The company plans to acquire assets at lower values than these and re-rate them to current western valuations.

“The board believes that by gathering smaller fields and using one management team to oversee the development of a number of fields in parallel, [Jupiter] should be able to provide economies of scale and considerable upside to its shareholders,” it said.

Kazakhstan has grown its oil exports substantially since it became an independent republic in 1991.

In 2006, its exports of crude oil and gas condensate grew 25.3% to 68 million barrels.