InterOil soars 8% in New York trade

INTEROIL Corp, a Canadian energy company, jumped 8% in New York trading after saying a gas well in Papua New Guinea pumped a record amount of the fuel.
InterOil, which is based in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and run from Cairns, Australia, rose US$4.53 (K12.05) to US$60.43 (K160.72) in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares earlier advanced to US$62.19 (K165.40), the biggest intraday percentage gain since Sept 18.
InterOil’s Antelope-2 well pumped the equivalent of 705 million cubic feet of gas a day during a test, the company said on Tuesday in a statement.
The rate set a record for a vertical gas well, surpassing the previous high of 382 million cubic feet a day at the company’s Antelope-1 well, Wayne Andrews, vice-president of capital markets for InterOil, said in an interview.
“Results continue to exceed the expectations of supporters and challenge the credibility of doubters,” Evan Calio, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York, said yesterday in a note to clients.
Calio, who has an “overweight” rating on InterOil’s shares, called the flow rate “staggering” and said it probably would spur additional exploration by InterOil and other companies.
The flow rate confirms InterOil’s onshore Antelope and Elk fields will be able to produce at least 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day, Andrews said in a telephone interview from Australia.
The company is planning to buy an additional rig to accelerate plans for eight more wells at the  186 square-km prospect, Andrews said.
US households burned an average of 3.98 billion cubic feet of gas a day in September, the most recent month for which figures were available on the energy department’s web site.
InterOil stock has more than quadrupled in price this year after chief executive officer Phil Mulacek discovered oil and gas fields in the South Pacific nation and sought partners to help build a US$5 billion to US$7 billion plant to export liquefied gas from Papua New Guinea to Japan and South Korea. – Bloomberg