Dart Energy has scrapped the initial public offering of its international business and announced plans to shed more than 100 jobs.
The company is suspending operations in Australia following recent regulatory changes on coal seam gas (CSG) and looking to sell non-core assets in Europe, China, Indonesia and India.
The business said it plans to focus its resources on the flagship coal bed methane project (CBM) at Airth, Stirlingshire, a secondary project in the Solway Basin, Dumfriesshire, and its shale assets in the UK.
Dart's restructuring is expected to slash costs by around 60% to A$1 million (£691,500) a month with staff numbers dropping to 50.
Board level employees are also being cut, with just one set of executives.
UK-based John McGoldrick becomes chief executive with Nick Davies as chairman and Shaun Scott, Stephen Bizzell, Norrie Stanley and Simon Poidevin as non-executive directors. Dart said it has A$20m of cash and liquid assets available to fund its activities.
Mr Davies said Dart was disappointed with the recent decisions in Australia.
He added: "The consequence is that investment is leaving the country, field operations are being suspended, Australian jobs are being lost, and the impending energy crisis in New South Wales is not being addressed.
"This is in direct contrast to the United Kingdom."
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