21 November
2019
Altona Energy
plc
("Altona" or the "Company")
Negotiation for
New Petroleum Exploration Licence
and Business
Update
Petroleum Exploration Licence
Application
Altona Energy (NEX: ANR.PL), a resources company, announces that
it has entered into early stage negotiations with a third party to
acquire a Petroleum Exploration Licence Application (“PELA”) on a
large tenement within a well-known coal bearing basin, the
Arckaringa Basin located in South
Australia. The tenement is in close proximity to the major
national road and rail transport corridor and also close to the
Company’s historic Minerals Exploration Licences within the
Arckaringa Basin.
The Company has commissioned a preliminary report from mining
consultant WSP Australia (WSP”) which states the tenement is
sufficiently prospective to warrant further investigations in
respect to developing a commercially viable in-situ gasification
(“ISG”) project. WSP has also indicated that such a project could
form part of a commercially viable and much broader development by
the Company, in the form of an ‘Energy Precinct’.
In addition to the chemical and other by-products possible from
the ISG process, the Energy Precinct would be designed to produce
energy from a variety of sources, including syngas from ISG, as
well as a co-located wind and / or solar energy field. South Australia has an energy deficit and
there are a number of remote mining operations that would very
likely welcome locally produced power at a competitive rate.
The Company will report to shareholders in due course on the
outcome of these negotiations, together with an initial cost plan
and timeline to establish the presence of coal in at least two
areas of the tenement at depths suitable for ISG.
Business Update
The Company announced on 6 June
2019 that it had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding
with a Chinese vanadium company which the Company was investigating
ahead of a potential investment. It can now report that the board
has decided against making an investment into this company at the
present time, due to a number of key market and economic
factors.
Furthermore, in respect of the company’s existing Australian
activities, the board has agreed to withdraw its applications for
the renewal of the three Exploration Licences (EL5676, 5677 and
5678) in the Arckaringa Basin. As shareholders are aware, the
Company does not own the PELA which lies over these tenements and
believes that it will not have the opportunity to acquire it in the
foreseeable future. And, as the Company remains focused on ISG for
the extraction of coal, rather than more traditional coal mining
methods, the cost of carrying these tenements is both
administratively and economically redundant to the current strategy
of Altona.
Finally, at a board meeting held on 19 November, Mr Ma Chi, the representative of the Company’s
joint venture partner Sino-Aus Energy Group Ltd (“Sino-Aus”) and a
non-Executive Director of the Company, announced that Sino-Aus was
no longer interested in an investment in ISG. Therefore, the
Company has dissolved its joint venture agreement of 5 November 2015 with Sino-Aus and Mr Ma has
resigned from the board with immediate effect.
Philip Sutherland, Altona’s
Australian Non-Executive Director, commented, “Over the past 10
months, we have been working diligently to find an alternative
source of revenue for the Company and this exciting opportunity to
acquire a PELA could represent a major step for the future of
Altona.
“The frustration for shareholders since 2015, has been the
knowledge that Altona has had the financial backing from its joint
venture partners and also vast amounts of mining data collected
over many years of exploration on our tenements, but we did not own
the correct licence to allow us to prosecute an in-situ
gasification project. Early indications are that this new and very
exciting opportunity could allow us to achieve what we set out to
do five years ago.”
-ends-
For further information, please visit www.altonaenergy.com or
contact:
Altona Energy
plc
Qinfu Zhang, Executive Director
Philip Sutherland, Non-Executive Director |
+44 (0) 7795 168 157
+61 (0)402 440 339 |
Alfred Henry
Corporate Finance Ltd (NEX Corporate Adviser)
Jon Isaacs / Nick Michaels |
+44 (0) 20 3772 0021 |
|
|
Leander (Financial
PR)
Christian Taylor- Wilkinson
|
+44 (0) 7795 168 157 |
Company Information
Altona is an exploration company focused on the evaluation,
development and extraction of coal assets in South Australia though the process of in-situ
gasification.
The Company was admitted to trading on AIM on 10 March 2005 and was subsequently admitted to
NEX on 1 February 2019. A copy
of its admission documents dated 4 March
2005 can be accessed on its website, www.altonaenergy.com.
This website is where items can be inspected under Rule 75 of
the NEX Rules for Issuers, from 1 February
2019.