Oil and gas newcomer in geothermal exploration and production

Geotermica AB, company website snapshot

Alexander Richter 19 May 2010

Geotermica AB (publ) is a Swedish start-up company carrying right now out an issue of new shares to finance the take over, end of the month, of a majority stake in the Italian geothermal exploration company DER srl, www.derenergy.com. DER holds the Rome West license, which is the only geothermal exploration permit on mainland Italy besides ENEL.

Geotermica was founded in 2009 by a team of oil and gas explorationists, headed by Dr Guy de Caprona, seeing an opportunity in the geothermal mid enthalpy sector. The staff has considerable exploration experience gained in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, offshore South East Asia, West Africa and onshore the Former Soviet Union and production experience from Australia and Ukraine. Building up a geothermal expertise, the team is backed-up by Fausto Batini, ex Dir Geothermal Program North America of ENEL, and the cooperation proves very fruitful as the two areas of expertise are very closely related.

In Stockholm, the company is well connected with the capital market which has a strong experienced sector in energy and mineral resources for speculative ventures shows a strong appetite for speculative ventures.

From the start in 2009, the company has focused on Italy with the highest heat flow in Europe and with high power prices. After assessing a number of leads in the country, the firm opted for taking over DER and Rome West, with quick lead times and limited risks of exploration.

The block is partly covered with seismic and has two petroleum exploration wells. Based on the evaluation of the available data, Guy de Caprona believes that with this block, the company stands a good chance of being able to start producing power from a pilot plant already in early 2013 which would be the first geothermal power production in Italy, besides ENEL in modern times.

Geotermica AB will finance the exploration and field development by raising capital on the Swedish stock markets and by farming out stakes in the project. Following the current minorsmall fund raising, of €1,4 million, to finance the take over and this summer geophysical and geochemical surveys, the company will do a larger public offer of new shares this coming autumn, followed by a listing on one of the Stockholm trading places.

With the present interest from the public for green, renewable power production and the availability across Europe of top quality exploration blocks, the company sees a window of opportunity and aims at rapidly taking a corner position by securing more blocks in Italy and in other European countries.

All quoted geothermal exploration and production companies being found in North America and Australia, Geotermica will most likely become the first company quoted in Europe. Click on the advertisement, right, for more investment information.

Details on the company and on investment information (via geotermica.se)

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