.

MM's holding this one back?

sp up 12% after successful open offer.

sp moving up 14% @ 9p

Nice to see directors buys and good write up in Shares mag


"small oil and gas explorer could be onto a big thing with shale asset" Investors looking to gain small cap exposure to the UK shale story could consider Europa Oil & Gas (EOG:AIM). The firm’s PEDL 181 interest in this potentially exciting new energy source lies adjacent to the licences that French oil major Total (FP:PA) has bought into. Alongside confirmation of a one-year extension to PEDL 181 (13 Jan), the £13 million cap noted that the East Midlands licence could contain shale gas. The asset, in which Europa has a 50% working interest, is located in close proximity to the two licences Total farmed into on the same day Europa announced its news. Europa’s peer Egdon Resources (EDR:AIM) has a stake in the Total assets and has trebled since it transpired the energy giant will bankroll a £29.7 million work programme. Total will fund a 3D seismic survey, a vertical exploration well and, conditional on the success of the testing of the exploration well, a horizontal appraisal well. Europa should see a tangential benefit from this activity and if further entrants follow Total, then its acreage could be in demand. Shale gas is brought to the surface through the application of two technologies – horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’. The latter involves pumping a mixture of chemicals, sand and water into shale rock at high pressures to stimulate the flow of gas and oil. The technique is controversial but the exploitation of shale gas has the firm backing of the Government which is offering generous tax breaks to operators and, in an attempt to win local councils round to the idea, will allow them to keep 100% of any business rates generated. Even if Europa’s shale potential goes unrealised in 2014 there are a number of other catalysts in the offing, including drilling on the Kiln Lane prospect on PEDL 181, due around the middle of the year. December’s £3 million share placing means the firm is covered for the costs here and for an exploration well at Wressle, Europa’s other onshore UK prospect. The latter is estimated to contain a relatively modest 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent net to the company but is low risk and could be brought on stream fairly rapidly. A farm-out of its Bearn des Gaves permit in France would allow the group to test the much larger 416 billion cubic feet Berenx gas prospect. And in 2015 it could drill a well on acreage in the Porcupine basin offshore Ireland, where it is partnered by US firm Kosmos Energy (KOS:NYSE). Europa offers another means of playing UK shale at 7p.

Notification of Interest in Shares

Director Share Purchase

Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc, the AIM listed oil and gas exploration and
development company with a combination of producing and exploration assets in
Europe, announces that Hugh Mackay, CEO of the Company, has today acquired
545,880 ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the Company (`Ordinary Shares') at a
price of 8.2 pence each.

Following this purchase, Hugh is interested in 2,340,883 Ordinary Shares
representing 1.14 per cent of the issued ordinary share capital of the Company.

**ENDS**

Northland Capital Buy 8.63 8.88 - 10.40 Reiterates

WATCH: Europa Oil & Gas (EOG) - The 65th Oilbarrel Conference


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StockMarketWire.com
Europa Oil & Gas posts a pre-tax loss of £1.4m for the six months to the end of January against a profit of £0.5m last time.

The loss before field impairments was £0.3m.

Revenues fell to £1.3m from £2.1m and net cash generation from operatioins was £0.2m - down from £0.6m last time.

Chief executive Hugh Mackay said: "We are confident the momentum that has been established across our portfolio of multistage projects will be maintained in the second half of 2015 and beyond: a CPR on our Irish and UK licences; an extended well test on the Wressle discovery that may lead to a fast track development; and the results of our applications in the 14th UK onshore licensing round are anticipated following the general election. In addition, we are working with our new farm-in partner and operator Vermilion Energy to advance our Tarbes permit in onshore France and the farm-out of our Bearn des Gaves permit onshore France is ongoing.

"Outside our existing portfolio, we are evaluating a number of new opportunities, as we look to leverage our proven technical expertise to generate significant value for shareholders. This is precisely what we have done with our Irish licences, which our partner Kosmos Energy estimates have gross mean un-risked prospective resources of up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil.

"We are intent on building the very high reward component of our portfolio. Our recent technical work indicates that there is substantial exploration upside in the Porcupine Basin and we will be bidding for new licences in the 2015 Irish Atlantic Margin licensing round."

Analysis by finnCap's analyst Dr Dougie Youngson; listen to his interview here