Red Emperor Resources seeks new opportunities amid project struggles

Red Emperor Resources updated the market on its activities for the quarter ended 30 September on Friday, reporting that at the Alaska North Slope, its joint venture purchased additional regional 3D seismic data within the Western Blocks, with reprocessing and reinterpretation of the existing 3D seismic planned in order to assess further the prospectivity of the acreage.

The AIM-traded firm said that, along with regional petrophysical analysis, the operator was hoping to report further to the joint venture during the coming months.

In the Philippines, at block SC55, Red Emperor said that on 26 August, the four-month extension to the moratorium period granted by the country’s Department of Energy expired.

The joint venture there sought to enter into sub-phase 5, which required further significant expenditure, including the commitment to drill an exploration well in 2020.

“The board decided that this was not the optimum use of shareholder funds and as a result during the quarter the company advised the operator, Palawan55, of its intention to withdraw from the joint venture and have its equity interest re-assigned,” the board said in its statement.

“Red Emperor still awaits formal approval of this reassignment from the Department of Energy, and will advise shareholders once this has occurred.”

On the corporate front, chief executive officer Gracjan Lambert resigned from the company by mutual agreement in August, in order to “pursue other business interests”.

During the quarter, Red Emperor retained the services of John Begg on a part-time basis to assist with introducing and reviewing business opportunities.

“John is an expert, upstream oil and gas project generator and deal closer,” the board said.

“With decades of experience in equity capital markets, John is an industry-leading geoscientist who has lived and worked with consistently high business impact in Australia, developing south east Asian countries, the UK, the Middle East and the US.”

Along with Begg, Red Emperor said it had conducted high-level due diligence on a number of projects around the world.

“The company looks forward to updating its evaluation of such opportunities as they progress.”

At the end of the quarter, the firm said it had cash at bank of around AUD 5.3m.

As at 0810 BST, shares in Red Emperor Resources were down 6.46% at 0.49p.