NGE managing director Jeremy Towner told PNN’s sister publication PNGIndustryNews that the company would go back to investors that had committed to the previous listing to ask that they support the new prospectus with some minor restructuring.
He said a couple of interested parties were looking to farm into the company’s onshore assets in PNG's emerging Foreland region.
Towner confirmed that NGE would still drill exploration wells in the first year after listing though this was likely to be on a smaller scale from its original plan to drill between three and six wells in the first half of 2008.
NGE's earlier $A50 million ($US43 million) initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange was cancelled when its cornerstone investors failed to secure the necessary funds before the offer closed.
Chairman John Towner said in a statement that waiting for the investors would have meant the issue of a supplementary prospectus and extending the offer by at least another month without guarantees.
This offer was originally scheduled to close on May 16, 2007 with shares planned for listing on May 30. It was subsequently extended to June 13 due to hold-ups with a cornerstone investor.
NGE had spent two-and-a-half years piecing together 52,000 square kilometres in six onshore licences – PPLs 265 to 269 and PPL 277 further to the east.
These contain 10 solid targets said to have initial in-place petroleum reserves of more than 1.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
