A MUST READ8 Mar 2017 20:58
Chief executive and co-founder Steve Staley has an excellenttrack record, having been the founding chief executive of Fastnet, bringing it to AIM.
He also acted as a consultant and non-executive director of Cove Energy which grew from a market cap of less then £3 million to be sold for £1.2 billion in 2012 to a subsidiary of Thailand’s national oil company PTT Public Company Limited.
In addition to his role at Upland he also acts as a non-executive at the hugely followed 88 Energywhich holds a very promising new oil and gas play in North America. .
So this is a man who knows his way around, knows how to put a deal together, and knows, moreover, not to rush things.
“We’re just starting off,” he says. “We haven’t been listed long. We’ve got some money and we’re about to get our first asset. But our underlying ethos is that we do proper due diligence. I’ve spent the last 15 years at the smaller end of things and there’s a temptation to do deals for the sake of doing deals.”
Nevertheless, Staley does have some idea of the shape and form he’d like Upland to develop into, given time and the right opportunities.
An independent Competent Person’s Report puts the likelihood of getting production out of the historic Hardstoft structure near Mansfield as high as 80%.
“It’s the oldest oilfield in Britain,” he says. “We’re partnered with Ineos, but we’re not interested in the shale. We’re just going for the conventional and we think there’s close to seven mln barrels recoverable there at relatively shallow depths. It should be easy to do.”
So at at the core of what will eventually become a company with a broad reach of international exploration assets will be small-scale high quality production asset in the UK, assuming that the aspiration for production is met.
Either way, with Staley’s operational experience added to the mix, that’s a highly investable proposition.
But it is where he goes internationally that will be interesting.
“We’re looking for things that work at low oil prices,” he says. “We’re focussing on the UK, on parts of North Africa, in particular in Morocco, and in Malaysia.”
Why these particular jurisdictions? “Our cornerstone investors are Malaysian,” says Staley simply. “The UK we already know well. And Fastnet and 88 Energy (which used to be called Tangiers) were focussed on Morocco.”
In general, onshore assets will be favoured over offshore, but aside from that there’s likely to be a range of propositions under consideration by Upland at any one time.
“In Morocco,” says Staley, “we’re looking at low-risk but not very big assets right the way through to blue sky.” And in Morocco gas is very much on the horizon since the local selling price is around fou
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