SHARES in Bowleven surged 9% after the company announced it had reached a keenly-awaited agreement to supply some of the gas it hopes to produce off Cameroon to a fertiliser maker.
Edinburgh-based Bowleven has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Germany's Ferrostaal under which it intends to supply gas for use in a fertiliser plant the company is building in the West African country.
Under the terms of the MOU, the plant is expected to provide a market for some of the output from Bowleven's Etinde Permit for at least 10 years, from 2015.
The signing of the MOU is a landmark event for Bowleven, which needs to raise funding for the costly infrastructure it will have to install before it can start commercial production off Cameroon. This will be partly dependent on persuading funders that there would be a market for any gas it produced as well as more valuable oil.
The MOU was also signed by SNH, Cameroon's state-owned oil and gas corporation.
Kevin Hart, chief executive of Bowleven, said: "Cameroon has a strong and growing domestic fertiliser market and we look forward to working closely with SNH and Ferrostaal to deliver the project.
"We are encouraged by the progress in our route towards the monetisation of Bowleven resources.
"This is a positive step towards the realisation of the potential of our acreage."
In a statement, SNH said that the signing of the MOU marks "a major step of this important project which is expected to speed up the agricultural revolution advocated by the head of state, His Excellency Paul Biya, as part of his policy of Major Accomplishments".
Bowleven did not give any indication of how much revenue it expects to generate from the proposed gas sales.
Shares in the company closed up 7.25p at 88p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article