Irish-backed Niche Group to buy stake in Turkish firm

THE Irish-backed investment Niche Group has reached initial agreement to buy a 5% stake in Arar Petrol ve Gaz — one of the leading exploration companies in Turkey.

The London-headquartered, exploration-focused Niche plans to pay for its equity stake in Arar out of the proceeds from a planned share placing.

The placing of 185.5 million shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London should raise £13 million (€14.8m) for the company.

The group, which saw its losses widen from nearly £230,000 in 2009 to just over £895,000 last year, has gone from a value of £400,000 to £50m (on the back of this share placing) in 12 months.

It is spending £8m on its Arar investment, giving it a foothold in Turkey’s second largest (and largest independent) exploration firm, which holds 21 local licences.

Niche is also upping its stake in international oil and gas explorer Oman Resources by 3.5% to 35.7%. Oman already has a 50% interest in four of Arar’s exploration licences. Niche’s primary investment focus is on the Turkish market, given its importance as the meeting point of the Asian and European gas markets.

Irish businessman John McKeon, who was one of the co-founders of Limerick-based explorer, Circle Oil, is a shareholder in both Niche and Oman, as well as a consultant in Niche.

Separately, it was recently announced that the eldest son of Chelsea FC owner, Roman Abramovich, Arkadiy, has acquired a 26% stake in Crosby Asset Management, which is 25% owned by Mr McKeon.

Meanwhile, Providence Resources has announced that the latest well in its British-based Singleton Oil Field to reach production stage has boosted production at the field by around 200 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The coming on stream of the X11 well — which is the latest of eight wells in the Singleton field — has boosted independent reserve estimates for the field as a whole by 44%, to 7.7 million barrels of oil .