5th Dec 2006 15:08
Xtract Energy plc05 December 2006 5 December 2006 AIM: XTR XTRACT ENERGY PLC ("Xtract" or "the Company") Completion of further investment in Cambrian Oil & Gas Plc ("COIL") Further to the announcement made on 16 November 2006, Xtract is pleased toannounce that it has now completed the purchase of 53,333,333 ordinary shares inCOIL from Cambrian Mining Plc ("Cambrian"). Having completed this purchase, the Company now holds 202,964,102 COIL ordinaryshares representing approximately 65.47per cent. of the issued share capital ofCOIL. Cambrian has received 29,090,909 new Xtract ordinary shares in consideration forthe sale of the COIL shares to the Company and, together with its wholly ownedsubsidiary Cambrian Investment Holdings Limited, now holds 292,942,500 Xtractordinary shares. This represents approximately 52.6 per cent. of the Company'senlarged issued share capital. Application has been made for the new Xtractordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and this is expected to becomeeffective on 8 December 2006. Enquiries: XtractJohn Newton 020 7409 0890Director Smith & WilliamsonAzhic Basirov 020 7131 4000David Jones 020 7131 4000 About Xtract Energy Plc Xtract's prime assets are its interest in shale oil deposits at Julia Creek in Queensland, Australia and a joint venture with the Australian research group, CSIRO, to develop a process for extracting oil from shale deposits. The initial validation tests, comprising small scale batch extractions of oil from the shale, have demonstrated that recovery from Xtract's Julia Creek shales in Queensland, Australia, would be in the order of 150 litres of light crude oil per tonne of shale. Earlier conventional retorting experiments indicated that the conversion of kerogen to oil yielded about 74 litres of oil per ton of shale. Applying this rate of yield increase to the yields of 50 - 65 litres per tonne used earlier this year in Xtract's AIM admission document in relation to certain of Xtract's Julia Creek leases results in estimated in-situ shale oil resources of over 1.6 billion barrels of oil. Other energy assets held by Xtract are: • Cambrian Oil and Gas Plc ("COIL") which is developing oil and gas assets in the Kyrgyz Republic. COIL has acquired 25% of the issued share capital of ASX listed MethanolAustralia Ltd ("MEO"). MEO is focused on developing a gas-to-liquids project inthe Timor Sea, approximately 275 km northwest of Darwin, Australia, in an areaknown as Tassie Shoal. It has secured Australian Commonwealth Governmentenvironmental approvals for two large scale (1.8 mtpa) methanol plants (50%interest) and a 3 mtpa LNG plant (100%), which is the only new Australia LNGproject to receive its Commonwealth Government environmental approvals. • approximately 19.1% of Wasabi Energy Limited which has rights to the Kallina power technology, uranium exploration interests in the Northern Territory, Australia, interests in the newly-formed Evolution Energy joint venture to produce bio-diesel fuel in Australia and in a coal deposit in Canada; • approximately 18.2% of Aviva Corporation Limited with promising thermal coal deposits in the mid-west of Western Australia. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
Xtract