Coal Seam Gas companies

(taken from AOE's Acquisition Scheme Booklet)


Coal Seam Gas (CSG) has been of considerable interest over the last few years. It represents a new technology of producing gas. Over the recent years there has been various corporate takeovers of CSG explorer and developers (eg Sydney Gas, Sunshine Gas, Roma Petroleum) by bigger companies (eg BG Group, Shell, AGL).

The table below may serve as a quick guide as to what CSG companies are still available and hence possible investment opportunities. Note that currently, Arrow Energy has an acquisition offer. In terms of size by enterprise value, none of the remaining CSG are close to Arrow Energy.

Most of the remaining companies are explorer / developer. Only Molopo is producing gas from its field in the Bowen Basin in Queensland. Note that the largest field for Molopo is in Canada, hence the 2P and 3P numbers from overseas are not included here. It also has tenements in South Africa.

From the 2P and 3P resources we see that many of the explorers have quite small reserves. The only other company with significant reserves besides Arrow Energy and Molopo would be Eastern Star Gas.

Just a note that:
1P = proven
2P = proven and probable
3P = proven and probable and possible.

Hence those companies with a very high 3P and relatively small 2P means that the majority of the reserves are only "possible". These are the companies with higher risk compared to one with smaller percentage of Possible reserves. In table, in the Proven and Possible %, the lower percentage the better.