Salinas yesterday announced it had raised the $6 million through the issue of 15 million shares at 40c per share, principally to international and domestic clients of Argonaut and Patersons Securities.
Salinas managing director John Begg said this placement would let Salinas pursue ongoing developments in the San Ardo area, in addition to tackling other opportunities identified in the Salinas Basin, one of the company’s two core areas onshore southern California.
“The next few months will be an exciting and active time for the company with the building and commissioning of our North San Ardo facilities, the commencement of other projects in the area and the completion of our regional study in the San Joaquin Basin,” he said.
“We are actively expanding our business in the San Ardo area and the additional funds raised through this placement will allow us to accelerate that process without compromising the progress of our existing projects.”
Meanwhile, Nuenco said it was doubling its interests in the San Joaquin joint venture (to 50%) and in the Kreyenhagen project (to 10%) by acquiring Maxin Investments’ interests.
It said the San Joaquin JV held a 100% working interest in 76,000 lease acres and the exclusive option to acquire oil and gas leases over another 186,000 acres.
Nuenco would also be free-carried for the first $US6 million ($A7.3 million) in expenditure to prove up the Kreyenhagen field.
Nuenco managing director Anthony Kain said this acreage represented a very large footprint over some of California’s richest and most prospective oil and gas turf.
“The San Joaquin JV acreage is ripe for reappraisal using modern seismic, drilling, completion and stimulation techniques,” he said.
“The JV team has undertaken an extensive process of technical review and target generation across the acreage package and has worked up the leading prospects, with further evaluation and target generation ongoing. These highly prospective leading prospects are now ready to drill.”
He said the JV intended to farm-out these initial plays on a prospect-by-prospect basis so multiple drilling programs could start later this year, with the aim of drilling leading prospects over the next six to 18 months, followed by ongoing project appraisal, discovery development, further prospect generation and drilling programs.
The Kreyenhagen oil field was currently the subject of a multi-well drilling program.
Four had been drilled and were now being tested, with about $US4 million of the free-carry remaining.
Initial observations from drilling to date were encouraging, particularly in relation to the size and extent of the field, according to Kain.
The drilling program was an appraisal of the Kreyenhagen oil field that had the potential to contain 40 million barrels of recoverable oil at relatively shallow depths of about 90-300m, he said.
