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Oil startup by ex-Goldman executive prepares for $67M IPO
Jeff Currie's 1947 Oil & Gas is preparing to offer shares ahead of a planned listing on London’s AIM
An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. (Dario Lopez-Mills/AP)
Key Takeaways:
- 1947 Oil & Gas plans to raise 50 million pounds in a London AIM listing next month to help fund its growth strategy.
- The company is pursuing a $65 million acquisition of Renaissance Offshore, whose Gulf of Mexico assets produce about 3,350 barrels of oil equivalent daily.
- If the acquisition closes, 1947 plans to use Renaissance as a platform for further Gulf asset purchases, company materials said.
Jeff Currie, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. commodities chief whose calls made him one of Wall Street’s best-known energy market strategists, is preparing to raise 50 million pounds ($67 million) in a London stock market listing to build an oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico.
1947 Oil & Gas Plc is preparing to offer shares at about 10 pence each ahead of a planned listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market next month, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. At the offer price, the company would have an implied market capitalization of about 64 million pounds.
A spokesperson for the company declined to comment.
The listing comes as 1947 pursues a $65 million acquisition of privately held Renaissance Offshore, which produces about 3,350 barrels of oil equivalent a day from shallow-water fields off Louisiana.
Currie, who spent more than two decades at Goldman before joining Carlyle Group Inc., is a founder and non-executive director of the company. He is joined by executive chairman Tim Duncan, the founder and former CEO of Talos Energy Inc., the Houston-based offshore producer.
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Currie
Former Cove Energy founder Ivan Murphy serves as president of the firm. Brian Romere, Renaissance’s president and finance chief, would assume the same roles at 1947 after the acquisition. The company says it intends to use Renaissance as a platform for further acquisitions of mature assets in the Gulf, seeing opportunities in smaller fields overlooked by larger producers.
1947 Oil & Gas is built around Currie’s long-held view that years of under-investment have left oil markets structurally tight. Company materials seen by Bloomberg argue that the recent Middle East conflict has accelerated this trend and increased the value of U.S. oil production.
Renaissance holds interests in 11 producing fields, 23 offshore platforms and 88 active wells, which 1947 estimates could generate more than $150 million of operating cash flow through the end of 2028.
1947 is the year that the first offshore oil well was drilled in the Gulf of Mexico beyond sight of land, the company said. Even though the shale boom is what pushed U.S. crude production to No. 1 in the world, the country’s offshore output remains a key source of growth. Production in the Gulf is currently about 2 million barrels a day, 15% of total U.S. oil output.
