Energy independent woos capital investors

FAIRFIELD Energy, the North Sea oil and gas explorer, is set to achieve a value of £720 million when it lists on the London Stock Exchange next week.

Fairfield was in Edinburgh last week speaking to instutional investors, where chief executive Mark McAllister said "we like them, they get oil and gas".

"The great thing about Edinburgh is the investors are very knowledgable about the oil and gas industry. Talking to them was great fun, you get an intelligent line of questioning which I think is very helpful.

McAllister is the chairman of Osprag, the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group, established by representative body for the UK offshore oil and gas industry, Oil and Gas UK, in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico crisis.

McAllister said: "Investors see the difficulties on the frontier, which means more traditional areas will have to be exploited more fully. That actually plays very well to the North Sea."

Fairfield plans to sell as many as 150.4 million new shares for 220p to 420p each, raising about 330m.

Most of the proceeds from the listing would be used to boost production from its producing oil fields which it acquired in 2008 from Shell and other redevelopment projects, said McAllister. About 20 per cent of the proceeds will also be used to pursue acquisitions and for exploration and appraisal, he added.

"We believe the time for a big substantial independent is still to come. The time is right for an indiginous UK independent of scale."

Fairfield was founded in 2005 with initial funding of 135m from a consortium of investors led by Warburg Pincus.

The company currently produces oil from four fields in the North Sea and operates a further four oil development projects in the area.