BOIL.L Regulatory News (BOIL)

12 Feb 2007 08:30

Gold Oil PLC12 February 2007 FOR RELEASE ON MONDAY 12TH FEBRUARY 2007 GOLD OIL PLC ("Gold" or "the Company") Gold Acquires a 24.67% Stake in Irish Resource Company Minmet Plc The board of directors of Gold Oil Plc is pleased to announce that agreement inprinciple (the 'Agreement) has been reached between Gold's wholly ownedsubsidiary, Gold Oil Caribbean Ltd ("Gold Caribbean") and Minmet Plc's whollyowned subsidiary, Minmet (Isle of Man) Limited. Minmet Plc is an Irish resourcecompany, IEX and AIM listed, Minmet plc ("Minmet"). Gold has identified several interesting oil and gas exploration and productionopportunities in countries outside of Gold's core areas of Peru and Colombia.Gold has been looking at different ways of realizing value from theseopportunities. In some of the non-core areas Irish companies have a good trackrecord of closing deals compared to British ones and as an Irish registeredcompany with its own financial resources and management, Minmet Plc should be ina unique position to exploit these opportunities. These areas, as well asopportunities outside of Central and South America that are presented to Gold,will be pursued by Minmet. The Agreement will enhance Gold's ability to acquire further non-core interestsin the region and provide the finance to rapidly exploit those interests. Under the Agreement Gold will acquire 24.67 percent of Minmet through a shareplacing and a share exchange. Gold has also entered into a technical servicesagreement with Minmet to provide oil & gas technical expertise and has agreed toappoint two directors to the Minmet board. Under the Agreement: • Minmet will purchase from Gold Caribbean proprietary data for oil andgas opportunities in several non-core Central and South American countries for£1. 35 million that Gold will use to subscribe for 10 million new ordinaryshares of €0.01 each in Minmet at a price of Stg13.5p per share. • Gold has agreed to subscribe for a total of 12.75 million newordinary shares of €0.01 each in Minmet issued at Stg13.5p per share in exchangefor a subscription by Minmet in Gold for 22.95 million new ordinary shares at aprice of Stg7.5p per share. • Minmet will appoint two Gold Oil directors, Mike Burchell and GaryMoore, as non-executive directors of Minmet. • Gold will perform certain technical management functions for Minmetand Minmet will perform certain administrative and corporate functions for Goldthrough service contracts Following these transactions Gold will hold a 24.67 percentage interest of theenlarged issued share capital of Minmet and Minmet will hold a 4.99 percentageof the enlarged issued share capital of Gold. Minmet and Gold have agreed to amutual lock in of one year. Gary Moore, Gold's Chief Executive, commented: "We have been looking for asuitable partner to develop these non-core opportunities for some time.Generally we would look to acquire exploration acreage and then, after a periodof negotiation and evaluation, seek a partner who will take a significantportion of the risk and cost. It may not always be possible to get the partnerof choice as a result of unique regional issues. Minmet is an Irish company witha significant portfolio of residual investments and increasing cash balances.The combination with Gold provides the opportunity to capitalise on a number ofopportunities. With this tie-up with Minmet we now have a partner with cash andin which Gold has a significant involvement and we can avoid the dilution of afarm-out to another company". For further information, please contact: Gary Moore Managing Director; Tel: 01737833597 Email: gmoore@goldoilplc.com Mike Burchell Chairman; Tel: 01372361772 Email: mikeburchell@hotmail.com Roland Cornish Beaumont Cornish Limited; Tel: 020 7628 3396 Notes to Editor: Minmet plc is an Irish registered and headquartered natural resource companywith oil and gas and mineral interests. The Company is listed on AIM (MNT.L) andIEX (MJX1) and its shares trade OTC in Oslo (MINT). The Company is the owner of the Bjorkdal gold mine in Northern Sweden producingapproximately 600 kgs of gold per annum. The mine is under a sale option toGold-Ore Resources Ltd. (GOZ - TSXV) of Canada, with the option to be determinedby 31 December 2007 at the latest. Minmet owns strategic shareholdings in the following publicly quoted companiesinvolved in gold and base metal mineral exploration: • Ashburton Minerals Ltd (ASX) • GoldQuest Mining Corp. (GQC-TSXV) • Horizonte Minerals plc (HML - AIM) • Northland Resources Inc. (NAU - TSXV & NAUR - Oslo) In addition Minmet has exploration and technical interests in: • Oil and Gas interests in Texas and New Mexico USA. • A lead / zinc discovery at Sungem, Minas Gerais, Brazil • Diamond exploration at Coromandel, Minas Gerais, Brazil • Gold bioleaching process For the year to 31 December 2005, Minmet had a loss of US$2,293,000 on turnoverof US$22,195,000 and net asset value of US$22,195,000. The cash position of Minmet as of 9 February 2007, including cash held in thirdparty stockbroker accounts totals US$5.8 million. Web - www.minmet.ie This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange