Sona shares rally on possible acquisition of O&G asset

by **Cals** Wed 12 Feb 2014, 08:41

Published: Wednesday February 12, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Wednesday February 12, 2014 MYT 6:49:33 AM
Sona shares rally on possible acquisition of O&G asset
BY TEE LIN SAY

PETALING JAYA: Shares in special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Sona Petroleum Bhd rallied on speculation that it was looking at an oil and gas (O&G) asset belonging to an Australian-based vendor.
The asset is said to be a producing oil field located in the Philippines.
Both the mother share and warrant of Sona closed at all-time highs of 54.5 sen and 33.5 sen, respectively. Sona’s warrants were the heaviest-traded counter of the day, with 310.7 million warrants changing hands. The warrant closed 5.5 sen higher to 33.5 sen.
Meanwhile, the mother share was the third-most actively traded stock with 126 million shares being done. The stock closed 4.5 sen higher to 54.5 sen.
Sona’s management did not reply to StarBiz’s queries at press time.
This is not the first time the market is abuzz with speculation that Sona is acquiring an O&G asset.
By virtue of being a SPAC or better known as a “cash box”, Sona’s mandate is to look out for suitable O&G assets to anchor its underlying asset as a listed entity.
In December last year, it was reported that Sona had identified an oil-field asset in Indonesia for some US$135mil (RM418mil), with an oil production capacity of about 1,500 barrels of oil per day. Sona was said to be in the due diligence stage.
When queried by Bursa Malaysia, Sona had responded that as a SPAC, it was evaluating several possible acquisition targets within its region of interest, namely South-East Asia, the Middle East and selected countries in Africa.
In October, various reports had mentioned that Sona would be taking up a stake in Singapore-listed RH Petrogas Ltd, an O&G company controlled by Sarawak tycoon Tan Sri Tiong Hiew King.
However, nothing had materialised from that report.
Sources said that while Sona might be in advanced stages of negotiations for the asset, the process could be long and tedious.
“Many critical issues can crop up along the way because good producing O&G assets are hard to come by,” said the source.