| APRIL 2005 - STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASES |
| ACTIVITIES FOR THE QUARTER ENDED 31 MARCH 2005 (29-04-2005) |
In order to view ROC's REPORT TO THE AUSTRALIAN STOCK EXCHANGE (ASX) - Activities for the Quarter Ended 31 March 2005 click here.
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PRESENTATION TO SHAREHOLDERS AND POTENTIAL INVESTORS (14-04-2005) |
Today ROC is scheduled to have a meeting with a small group of shareholders and potential investors at which it will present information relating to the Company's activities including attachments 1-9 which represent the only material to be presented that is not already in the public domain.
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| ACTIVITY UPDATE – ANGOLA (14-04-2005) |
KEY POINT • ROC is progressing its Angolan activities on several fronts including the establishment of a senior executive team in Luanda and preparations for a substantial onshore seismic survey.
• Mr Antonio Vieira has been appointed President of Roc Oil (Cabinda) Company. This is the wholly owned subsidiary through which ROC currently owns the majority of its interest in the Cabinda South Block, onshore Angola. Mr Vieira, an engineer by training with qualifications from Luanda, Lisbon and Texas A & M University, has been with ROC for five years, mainly as the Company’s Representative in Africa. Sydney-based Mr Vieira speaks several languages including Portuguese and will spend a significant amount of time in Luanda and Cabinda. • Dr Ken Seymour has been appointed General Manager-Angola. With more than 25 years experience in the international oil industry, Dr Seymour started his career with BP and subsequently spent 19 years with the former Ranger Oil Limited, now CNR International, primarily in Angola. Since he first started working in Angola in 1995, Dr Seymour has held a variety of senior executive positions in that country including Drilling/Country Manager, Operations Manager and General Manager. Dr Seymour is fluent in Portuguese and will be based in Luanda.
2. Seismic Survey
The seismic survey, which will be the first on-the-ground oil exploration activity to occur onshore Angola for more than 30 years, will be a landmark event for ROC. The survey is designed to detail numerous prospects and leads which have been identified from the pre-1972 seismic which shows a multiplicity of structuring (eg Attachments 1 – 4). All existing wells in the Cabinda South Block were drilled prior to 1972 and were primarily located on a combination of poor quality, single fold seismic data, surface geology and gravity anomalies. Despite this sparse exploration framework, a number of the wells drilled in the Cabinda South Block encountered significant oil and gas shows and, in some cases, flowed and/or recovered oil and gas to surface. Further details of the geology and perceived prospectivity of the Cabinda South Block are contained in previous public announcements by ROC and can be found on the Company’s website.
3. Portfolio Management ROC continues to progress its previously announced strategy of farming out a minority portion of its equity in the Cabinda South Block.
4. Marburg Virus Considered advice from various sources within Angola, suggests that the recent outbreak of the Marburg Virus, which has received widespread media coverage in various parts of the world, is not expected to impact on the Company’s operations in Cabinda. However, for all the obvious Health, Safety and Environmental reasons ROC will continue to monitor the situation very closely. |
| ROC ACQUIRES OPTION OVER THE BEETALOO BASIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA (12-04-2005) |
KEY POINT • ROC has purchased an option over up to 87.5% interest in four exploration permits in the onshore Beetaloo Basin in Australia’s Northern Territory.
As a result of an Option Agreement (“the Option”) entered into between ROC and Sweetpea Petroleum Corporation Pty Ltd, a private Australian company affiliated with two privately-owned US companies, ROC is entitled to acquire up to 87.5% of each of four exploration permits – EPs 76; 98; 99 and (A)117 - which cover about 7 million acres/28,000sqkm, representing most of the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, approximately 500km southeast of Darwin (Attachment 1). The Option Agreement runs to mid-June 2005 during which time ROC will review the petroleum prospectivity of the area and decide whether it wishes to exercise its entitlement. If ROC exercises the Option, the final equity which the Company will acquire in each of the four permits will be determined by the magnitude of a seismic and drilling programme that would be operated and 100% funded by ROC during the next two or three years. As a result of fulfilling a minimum work programme, consisting of 330km of 2D seismic and an exploration well, ROC will earn a 50% interest in three of the permits and a 75% interest in the fourth permit in which the well is drilled. The preliminary cost estimate for such a programme is A$3 to 4 million. The Option provides ROC with the right to earn further interests in all four permits by operating and funding up to seven additional wells. In consideration for the Option, ROC has paid approximately US$50,000 to Sweetpea as a partial reimbursement of the company’s past costs. If the Option is exercised and the farmin fully completed Sweetpea will retain a 12.5% working interest in each of the four permits plus a 5% overriding royalty. The Option is subject to normal industry terms and conditions.
2. THE BEETALOO BASIN The Beetaloo Basin covers approximately 8.8 million acres/35,600sqkm and is barely explored. The basin contains more than 3,000m of Precambrian and younger sediments including several thick, rich source rock intervals, the richest of which has reportedly more than 100m of black, generally oil-prone, shale with a total organic carbon content (TOC) which typically ranges from 4 to 7% but which can be as high as 12%. Three thick sandstone sequences also occur within the basin which may represent potential reserves interbedded with the source rock intervals. Large, untested structural leads are also thought to be present. Within the basin there is only about 2,700km of 2D seismic and 11 wells. Most of the wells are stratigraphic tests, drilled during the late-‘80s to early-‘90s by the petroleum arm of a large mining company. Few, if any, of the wells were located with reference to seismically defined structural closures. Nevertheless, oil shows have been reported in several of these holes and free oil has been reportedly recovered on test. International oil producing areas which are considered to be broad analogues to the Beetaloo Basin exist in North America, eastern Siberia and the Middle East.
3. CEO’S COMMENTS Commenting on the transaction, ROC’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr John Doran stated that: “In a number of ways this transaction is a typical ROC deal. It is a series of low cost options, with a private company, run by knowledgeable industry people with whom we feel comfortable. It relates to an area which most industry participants would consider unfashionable and an opportunity which has been sourced through our industry contacts. The upside potential is large but, as yet, unproven, because, despite appearing to have the ingredients for the generation and entrapment of oil, the area is, for all practical purposes, barely explored. Quite a few things have changed during the 12 or more years that have passed since the last time there was a serious attempt to look for oil in the Beetaloo Basin. Substantial infrastructure has been established in the form of a much improved road link and a new rail line to Darwin; new gas pipelines have been constructed; Aboriginal land right agreements have been executed – and oil is no longer US$12/BBL. In some parts of the world the seven million acres involved in the transaction would, perhaps, impress; but, in Australia we have a healthy cynicism about such things and fully realise that a big, pure exploration acreage position is, not in itself, of any immediate value – although it does come in handy when a discovery is made."
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