AMITY Oil is unfazed by the Turkish Government’s announcement this week that it would reduce gas prices.
The Government, one month out from elections, has negotiated a purchase price reduction with Russia.
Amity chairman Richard Elliott said any change to either urban or industrial prices would not have a major impact on the company, which was now producing and selling to four industrial customers in Turkey.
It expects gas deliveries to pick up pace with six additional customers on its books.
Mr Elliot said the company had high margins, and gas prices had increased 10 per cent in the past year so if some prices did go down, it would not be an issue.
“The volume of gas sold is more important, and in the past two weeks we have increased that by 50 per cent,” he said.
Amity’s partner in Turkey, the Government-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation, will drill another well within the next month, the first one in which Amity will participate without being the operator.
The company is upbeat again about plans to drill Whicher Range-5 in the southern Perth Basin near Busselton.
Potential 31.54 per cent partner Whicher Range Gasfields Limited, chaired by Amity director Anthony Barton, pooled a planned listing in a cool market last spring, and Northern Hemisphere companies have stalled on committing to the project.
Low gas prices, compared with the US, were a big negative.
Mr Elliott said Amity sounded out Australian interests again in August and found attitudes had changed.
He said this could have been in part due to other Perth Basin successes during the past year.
WA’s stability and the prospect of further State industrial activity going ahead augured well for continued interest in gas plays.
