Barry FitzGerald: Nobody light a match - this 2c gas stock could go off any minute

What’s the best performed commodity of the last two years? Try Western Australian domestic gas for a start.

Despite having monster gas reserves on the North West Shelf destined for export markets, the WA domestic market is in a spot of bother, with gas having to take up the slack from coal power closures, as well as replacing diesel at the mines and processing plants.

The stress on domestic supplies and the prospect of an absolute shortage emerging has put a rocket under the WA domestic gas price. It has gone from $3/GJ two years to more than $9/GJ.

It’s why WA billionaires Gina Rinehart and Chris Ellison have been busy in the domestic gas space, opening up their chequebooks to buy up gas resources in the onshore Perth Basin to fuel their mineral processing ambitions.

The basin has long been an oil and gas province but was pretty much on its uppers 10 years ago. But then a discovery said to the biggest onshore find in 40 years was made at the Waitsia prospect, inland from Dongara in the north of basin.

Importantly, the gas was from what was previously considered to be a deeper secondary target in the deeper lower Permian zones. Its success prompted a rethink on the gas potential of the entire northern region of the basin.

More big discoveries have followed and as the big spending by the WA billionaires has shown, the north Perth Basin has become an exploration hotspot, with the application of modern 3D seismic lighting up the region’s potential like never before.

All of the above is by way of background to today’s interest in an oil and gas junior with a prime position in the north Perth Basin – Triangle Energy (ASX:TEG).

It was trading mid-week at 1.7c for a fully diluted market cap of $35 million. If it enjoys success in two exploration wells to be drilled in June/July, it could be a multi-bagger.

It is high-risk-high-reward stuff, with Triangle mitigating the high-risk part by working up other drill gas and oil targets in the north Perth Basin, expanding its portfolio in to Asia and the UK, and seeking to convert a legacy asset into a re-rating event.

By now readers might remember that Garimpeiro had a look at Triangle in August last year when it was 2c stock on a smaller issued capital base. The difference now is that the two potential game-changing wells (another one late in the year) are now close at hand.

Triangle holds a 50% interest in two permits after farming out 50% to NZOG and the now Strike Energy-owned Talon (25% each) for $22 million in work and drilling commitments, with Triangle the operator and its partners stumping up most of the costs.

The first prospect to be drilled is called Booth which has a “best estimate” of the prospective gross gas resource of 279 billion cubic feet of gas.

Based on the dealmaking of the WA billionaires mentioned earlier, 1Bcf gas has a value of about $1 million to $2 million in the Perth Basin.

The use of modern 3D seismic has improved drilling success rates in the basin.

But there are no guarantees. Still, if Booth were to come in at something like the best estimate Triangle’s 50% interest (about 140Bcf) would be seriously meaningful for the $35m company.

Booth is a $10 million well and given the size of the prize, is well worth the shot. It will be followed up with a lower cost oil exploration well called Becos (2.5 million barrels best estimate potential net to Triangle).

Oil in the Perth Basin is worth about $20 a barrel. So Becos itself is potential game changing stuff for Triangle with its modest market cap.

As hinted earlier, there is more to the company.

There is the Asia and UK pick-ups, and a plan to sell Triangle’s interest in the ageing Cliff Head oilfield in the offshore Perth Basin for $15 million in staged payments/royalties on its end use as a carbon capture and storage (CCS) operation being confirmed.

Apart from the sale proceeds, Triangle would also be liberated from abandonment and rehabilitation costs had Cliff Head ended its days as a small oil producer and not a new age CCS operation.

Euroz Hartleys recently issued a detailed research note on Triangle. It has a 3.1c target price on the stock, or 3.8c on Triangle’s successful exit from the Cliff Head oilfield.