Kina Petro shares soar

THE recently-listed Kina Petroleum Ltd yesterday saw its shares soar by 19.15% or A$0.045 to a record high of A$0.28 with possible imminent news about the farming out of two of its fully-owned leases, PPL337 and PPL 340, located to the northeast of Port Moresby.
Kina, which was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and Port Moresby Stock Exchange in December, had attracted a surge of interest following last week’s deal between Canada’s Talisman and Japan’s Mitsubishi for enhanced gas exploration work in Western province.
The stock mainly languished below its issue price of A$0.20 following its listing but has attracted attention following the announcement of the success of the Elevala-2 appraisal well and high expectations from the Ketu-2 well, where drilling will commence shortly.
Both prospects are located on PRL 21 and are the subject of front end engineering and development studies for commencement of a gas stripping operation and condensate exports within the next two years.
Kina was expecting to announce farm out partners shortly for PPL227 and PPL340.
Among the front runners was expected to be Oil Search, which had already farmed into KPL’s PPL338 and 339 where it could gain a 70% stake by funding a seismic survey and possibly drilling two wildcat wells.