An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP)
key takeaways:
- 1947 Oil & Gas plans to raise £50m in a London AIM listing next month to fund its growth strategy.
- The company is acquiring Renaissance Offshore, whose Gulf of Mexico assets produce about 3,350 barrels of oil equivalent per day, for $65 million.
- If the acquisition closes, 1947 plans to use Renaissance as a platform for further Gulf asset purchases, company materials said.
Jeff Currie, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. commodities chief whose calls made him one of Wall Street’s best-known energy market strategists, is preparing to raise 50 million pounds ($67 million) in a London stock market listing to build an oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico.
1947 Oil & Gas Plc is preparing to offer shares at around 10 pence ahead of a listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market next month, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. At the offer price, the implied market capitalization of the company will be approximately £64 million.
A company spokesperson declined to comment.
The listing comes after an attempted $65 million takeover of privately held Renaissance Offshore in 1947, which produces the equivalent of about 3,350 barrels of oil a day from shallow water fields off Louisiana.
Currie, who spent more than two decades at Goldman before joining Carlyle Group Inc., is the company’s founder and non-executive director. He is joined by Executive Chairman Tim Duncan, founder and former CEO of Houston-based offshore producer Talos Energy Inc.
Former Cove Energy founder Evan Murphy serves as chairman of the firm. Renaissance’s president and finance chief, Brian Romere, would assume the same roles he had in 1947 following the acquisition. The company says it intends to use the renaissance as a platform for the acquisition of mature assets in the Gulf, given the opportunities in smaller fields ignored by larger producers.
1947 Oil & Gas is built on Currie’s long-held view that years of underinvestment have left oil markets structurally tight. Company materials seen by Bloomberg argue that the recent Middle East conflict has accelerated this trend and increased the value of US oil production.
Renaissance has interests in 11 producing fields, 23 offshore platforms and 88 active wells, which 1947 estimates could generate operating cash flows of over $150 million by the end of 2028.
1947 is the year the first offshore oil well was drilled beyond sight of land in the Gulf of Mexico, the company said. Even though the shale boom has propelled U.S. crude oil production to No. 1 in the world, the country’s offshore production remains a major source of growth. Production in the Gulf currently stands at about 2 million barrels per day, which is 15% of total US oil production.
