There has been a distinctly oily flavour to the recent rash of resource stocks to hit the Australian Stock Exchange.
Perth-based Strike Oil is one of the most recent oil and gas explorers to list.
A public unlisted company for the past seven years with acreage in the Carnarvon and Cooper basins, Strike seems to have timed its birth as a listed public company well.
Strike came on at a 4 cent premium to its issue price of 20 cents and has been hovering around the 22 cent to 23 cent mark since.
However, while Strike managing director Simon Ashton said the growing number of oil and gas focused floats were in a general sense to do with the high oil price, from Strike’s perspective it was simply coincidental.
“We would like to think it’s clearly to do with the program from a Strike Oil perspective,” he said.
Mr Ashton said there were a number of contributing factors behind Strike’s decisions to list.
He said Strike had carefully assembled projects to a stage where they were appealing to the public market.
Mr Ashton said the listing was a way to create liquidity for the initial 26 shareholders in Strike.
After seven years the improved financial markets late last year also prompted Strike to list, despite a scare around May.
“Sentiment weakened off a bit and that was about the time we were sort of ramping up to do our float,” Mr Ashton said.
“So there was a lot of concern out there that maybe [Strike] had left it too late.”
