Shares digital

by Tom Sieber

The junior market now has the first Mongolian company to be listed on an international stock exchange. Resources explorer Petro Matad, expected to be valued at £35 million when it lists, is not raising any money at flotation, having raised $10 million in January to fund seismic work and corporate costs and admission fees. It is entirely focused on the 100%-owned Block XX in eastern Mongolia, a few kilometres from the border with energy-hungry China.

Petro Matad CEO Doug McGay, who travelled from Australia to Mongolia ten years ago, says he is proud of his role in bringing the first company with a major Mongolian shareholding to an international stock exchange, and that Petro Matad is a ‘trailblazer’.

Daqing Corporation, a subsidiary of Chinese state oil company PetroChina, operates the block immediately north east of Block XX and good results have been reported from the five exploration wells, drilled over the past two years, near the northern border of its own acreage.

The group, established by major shareholders Petrovis and the Central Asian Petroleum Corporation , hopes to drill four wells in 2009 and 2010 and three in 2011.

Petrovis is the leading domestic supplier of oil products in Mongolia, which has a net import position of 8,900 barrels of oil a day, giving the government a vested interest in encouraging oil exploration.