Southern Pacific Petroleum NL

Southern Pacific Petroleum NL (asx|SPP) is an Australian oil shale and minerals mining company. It was developer of the Stuart Oil Shale Project.

History

Southern Pacific Petroleum NL (SPP) was incorporated on 6 February 1968 as an oil company. It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on 16 May 1968. Since 1973, the main activity of the company is an oil shale exploration and extraction. In the mid 1980s, Southern Pacific Petroleum NL and Central Pacific Minerals NL (CPM) formed a joint venture with Esso Australia to develop the Rundle oil shale deposit in Queensland. The active development of the Rundle deposit ceased in late 1980s when Esso deferred of the project.

In 1997 SPP/CPM signed a joint venture agreement with the Canadian company Suncor Energy to develop the Stuart oil shale deposit.cite paper
title = Survey of energy resources
publisher = World Energy Council
date = 2007
pages = 103-104
url = http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser2007_final_online_version_1.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-08-20] Suncor was designated as the project operator. In April 2001, Suncor left the project and SPP/CPM became the sole shareholder of the project. In February 2002, SPP and CPM merged and SPP became the holding company for the group's interests, including the Stuart Oil Shale Project.

On 25 October 2003, the trade with SPP's share was suspended due financial dificulties of the company. As SPP had granted fixed and floating charges in favour of Sandco Koala LLC in May 2003, the chargee appointed receivers of SPP on 2 December 2003.cite web
title = Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd v Southern Pacific Petroleum NL. Corporate law judgments. No. 2051 of 2004
publisher = University of Melbourne. Centre for Corporate Law & Securities Regulation
url = http://cclsr.law.unimelb.edu.au/judgments/states/vic/2004/november/2004vsc477.htm
date=2004
accessdate = 2007-07-24] On 13 February 2004, the Stuart Oil Shale Project and other assets were sold by receivers to the newly formed company Queensland Energy Resources. The most important remained asset was the stake in the Rundle joint venture, which was sold on 11 May 2007 to Australian Oil-Shale Holdings. In September 2007, the proposal of recapitalization of the company by Ascent Capital was accepted and on 28 May 2008, shareholders approved the recapitalization. At the same time all interests held by third parties in the Glassford Tenement, Central Queensland, were transferred to SPP.cite paper
title = Quaterly report for the 3 month ending 30 June 2008
publisher = Southern Pacific Petroleum NL
date = 2008
url = http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20080723/pdf/31b9jgr5hlzrd4.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-08-20]

Activities

The Glassford Tenement, approximately convert|136|ha|km2, is located convert|70|km|mi south of Gladstone and convert|15|km|mi southwest of Nargoorin, Central Queensland. The mineralizationzone consists of a series of copper-silver-gold bearing skarn lodes. SPP intends to commence a work program to test the major geochemical anomaly areas for potentially economic mineralization.

References