News blog

InfraStrata

  • BY: Andrew Hore |
  • POSTED: 07/05/2012 |

InfraStrata’s partner in the Portland gas storage project eCORP is restructuring its European operations and this means that its interest in the project will need to be renegotiated.

InfraStrata is also reassessing the configuration of the Portland project, where it owns 50%. It plans to include carbon capture and storage in the project, which should help to reduce costs. The project is submitting a bid in the government’s £1bn Carbon Capture Storage Commercialisation Programme. There is also scope to sell electricity from the proposed on-site generation plant.

InfraStrata has signed up BP as its partner for its Northern Ireland gas storage project. BP Gas Marketing (BPGM), BP’s gas trading division, has been granted an option to acquire a 50.495% stake in Islandmagee Storage Ltd (IMSL). BPGM will finance development of the project up until the point where a decision can be made on whether to go ahead with a detailed engineering design.

If planning permission is granted by the end of June then the drilling of the well for the first cavern could happen before the end of the year. This is the main expenditure that BPGM has to cover.

InfraStrata’s stake in IMSL will be diluted from 65% to 32.178% and Moyle Energy Investments’ stake will fall from 35% to 17.327%. IMSL received £200,000 on the signing of the agreement and a further £200,000 will be paid when planning permission is obtained. This cash will be used to pay back loans from InfraStrata. IMSL will receive income from managing planning and other aspects of drilling operation.

Progress is being made with the oil and gas exploration assets and longer-term they could be sold in order to help to finance the core gas storage operations. 

There was £1.5m in the bank at the end of 2012. Now that the main projects are no longer subsidiaries, InfraStrata does not have to put its own cash into them. The cash in the bank will mainly be used to cover corporate overheads.

At 9.38p a share, InfraStrata is valued at £8.53m. 

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