Desire Petroleum

<>Desire Petroleum plc (Desire) is a UK company listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) dedicated to exploring for oil and gas in the North Falkland Basin.

Desire has recently completed a 6 well exploration programme. The Liz well encountered dry gas and gas condensate at 2 separate levels while other wells recorded shows.
Together with the Rockhopper Exploration Sea Lion oil discovery in the licence to the north, these wells have provided significant encouragement for the potential of the North Falkland Basin. The oil at Sea Lion is of particular interest as this has demonstrated that oil is trapped in potentially significant quantities in a fan sandstone on the east flank of the basin. It is believed that over 50% of this east flank play fairway is on Desire operated acreage.

Desire has now completed new 3D seismic acquisition which provides coverage over the east flank play, Ann, Pam and Helen prospects. The results from fast-track processing of priority areas are provided in the 2011 CPR. A farm-out to Rockhopper has been announced. The revised equities are shown on the licence map (subject to regulatory approval and completion of the farm-in well). Desire Petroleum

Rockhopper Exploration

British Geological Survey

Argos Resources



Latest Press Realeses from Desire

"Desire Petroleum (AIM:DES), the oil and gas exploration company wholly focused on the North Basin of the Falkland Islands, is pleased to announce that it has conditionally placed 60,000,000 new ordinary shares of 1p each ("Placing Shares") at an issue price of 70p per share, thereby raising 42 million (approximately US$68 million) before expenses (the "Placing").

The Placing Shares, which have been placed predominantly with new institutional investors by Seymour Pierce Limited, will represent approximately 20.7 per cent. of the Company's Enlarged Share Capital."

this chart ain't pretty ..... take care before investing, which is not to say that there will not be a correct time .....

It looks beautiful to me. I bought them at 22p.

WHAT!! not taking profits and holding on for so long..geoffsh....cynic will not be happy.......lol...good for you.

So you have already lost 20% of the profit you had, geoffsh. The next question is, how far down will it go & where will you start to wish you had sold some to lock in profit?

21% of the share capital is quite a chunk, though it's only conditional atm. Presumably the institutions will be tied into a time clause, but this is big dilution & it's difficult to work out where the sp should level out.

It should drop to 70p now with shorting and people closing the shorts with new stock from the placing.

Great RNS yesterday and very glad to see Desire raising the extra money to drill more holes and for the Institutions to over subscribe this 3 times over is a very positive.

We need a bit more meat on the bones before understanding the full picture and look forward in reading the prospectus and getting a bit more detail I still have a gut feeling Desire still have a few more cards to play in the near future which might change the picture but are chances of striking oil have just gone up with the drilling of more prospects and testing more plays.

All the action will switch to the South Atlantic soon....not that far off now, by next spring these threads will be alive with buzzing comments.....

I doubt whether this will drop to 70p...too much potential....but this stock is quite a gamble...loads of wells to be drilled...the Desire Petroleum people must be quite confident of finding something to put so much effort into this....one thing I'm a bit concerned about is : when on earth will the Rockhopper lot get to drill their wells because by the look of it DES will drill at least 4 wells of their own and that will take ages before RKH get a look in !.

The way I understand this is that there is no lock in period for the Institutions so they can sell what shares they have bought at 70p and make a profit but have been told that demand for these shares was heavily oversubscribed and the Institutions will be buying more shares between now and the first spud date hence we are seeing some large buys going through.

Required field the last shell well was drilled in 14 days,but i can see the rig been in the Falklands for quiet a while as i think there is a lot more news to come on partners and more holes drilled.

Yes, shallow prospects...the rig will be there in my view for 2 years at least, still at the moment DES looks the better buy rather than RKH who need to raise funds...their wells at a guess will be drilled late next summer...some way off yet.

good chance to get in I would say if not already looking at cynics graph, placing at 70p oversubscribed and pvte invs bound to take up too, 83p prob resistance level for now before the excitement starts in new yr

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2009/10/22/Falklands-oil-dream-becoming-a-reality-with-new-funding/UPI-56531256244511/

Falklands oil dream becoming a reality with new funding

STANLEY, Falkland Islands , Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The Falkland Islands' dream of becoming a major oil producer may be becoming a reality with new investment funds going into exploration amid expert analysis the British overseas territory may hold more oil than the North Sea.

Desire Petroleum, one of the oil and gas exploration companies active in the area, announced this week it has conditionally placed 60 million new ordinary shares of 16 cents each at an issue price of $1.16 per share, raising $68 million before expenses.

The company said it already had about $40 million available for investment in Falklands oil exploration and development and planned to raise more than $100 million through share offerings.

These shares were placed predominantly with new institutional investors and will be supplemented with an open offer that is expected to raise an additional $38 million.

In September Desire agreed with Diamond Offshore Drilling (UK) Ltd to start drilling the ocean bed in the North Falkland Basin. The drilling operation is scheduled to involve four wells and cost about $20 million.

With additional funds at its disposal Desire plans to increase the number of wells it will drill to look for substantial quantities of oil. Further drilling by Desire partners Arcadia Petroleum Limited and Rockhopper Exploration has already been announced.

The companies have said they want to drill as many wells as feasible in potentially viable areas to explore and exploit the area's full potential.

Drilling for oil in the ocean bed north of the Falkland Islands began about 10 years ago, and early studies showed five of the first six wells held certain promise but not on a commercial scale. Further exploration was abandoned as the crude oil price plummeted below $10 a barrel at that time and the exploration costs proved too prohibitive. Major players, including Shell, soon pulled out of the exploration program.

The Falklands government says it plans to monitor prospective and oil industry development closely to make sure the islands' transformation does not damage their environment and major tourist attractions, including penguins.

Scientists have established the rocky basins around much of the Falklands hold reserves that are at least equal to the central North Sea oil fields.

Desire estimates the areas under its prospecting may hold 5 billion to 6 billion barrels of oil.

Although the British government has refrained from comment on a potential transformation of the Falklands into an oil-rich economy, it is watchful of reactions from Argentina, which still claims sovereignty over the territory. Argentina and Britain fought a war over the islands in 1982.

I really need a drilling budget to deceide which way to vote.

with RKH having been crunched by its cash-raising share issue, DES has continued to soften, albeit to nothing like the same degree.

anyway, i draw everyone's attention to a very long article, primarily about BP, in yesterday's Sunday Times.
the nub of it was that regardless of the short term issues surrounding the price of crude, known oil reserves are being depleted far quicker than new are being found.
of course this does not necessarily mean that crude will rise - it almost certainly will over time, but it is driven by other factors - but that second tier and smaller companies with proven reserves of both quality and quantity, will become ever more tempting morsels.

as it stands, DES and others in the falklalnds basin still have to actually find the alleged multi million/billion/trillion barrels of oil said to be just sitting, merely just awaiting the drill bit ...... so, if you believe the story, then now is possibly not a bad time to buy DES, as its sp having fallen about 20% from its recent high, is just about touching the 50 dma, from which it could/should bounce

Thanks Cynic - useful analysis

hi T ..... wedding was a total blast! ..... i don't normally enjoy that sort of thing much, but suffice it to say that we did not go to bed until 2:30 sunday morning!

Good job you had an extra hour then! - thought it would be fun!

Mark, the Placing is conditional on the Shareholders agreeing it at Meeting 9/11 but if price goes below the 70p are the Institutions obliged to take up the placing?

Hi Rob,

The Shareholders must agree to the resolution for both placing and open offer to go ahead but this is only a formality as the Phipps family hold so many shares and any shareholder who does not agree must be short of a screw.

The way i understand it is that the institutions have agreed to take the 42 mill shares at 70p and are held in on that price.

The open offer will be made to share holders on would like to buy X amount of new shares in Desire at 70p it will not be on the bases of how many shares you hold.
Also the open offer at 70p may be less than the 70p if the share price drops further nothing is in ink yet.
I think once the placing and open offer is out the way the price will start to rise and when the OG leaves Scotland to the Falklands well its time for the champers.