Arden Partners hails Eastern promise

Great Eastern Energy fanned the flames of investor enthusiasm for coal-bed methane when its house broker set a 500p price target on the back of the India-focused company’s recent drilling success and dramatically increased estimates of its reserves.

Arden Partners could barely conceal its joy. “A sales agreement with one of the major steel plants in the [Indian] region, perhaps by mid-year, will demonstrate pricing, demand and deliverability,” it predicted. Shares in Great Eastern leapt 27½p to 222½p.

The rush of investor support in the sector began when BG Group launched a bid for Origin, the Australian producer, which supplies China with the gas extracted from coal seams in Queensland.

Shares in Island Oil and Gas, the explorer whose shares have been hammered by debt and lack of producing assets, rose 9p to 30p after it sold its Amstel oilfield off the Netherlands, for $25 million (£12.76 million) in cash and a $10 million loan, a big profit on its $800,000 investment. It will use the money to repay an earlier loan. Davy, the house broker, values the group at above 80p per share.

MDM Engineering, which builds processing plants for mid-sized miners in Africa, rose 4½p from its 145p float price on its first day of trading on AIM.

Colliers CRE, the commercial real estate consultant, fell 13p to 61½p after Sir John Ritblat, the chairman, said that fees this year would be below expectations as clients are reducing office expansion plans.

Northern Petroleum rose 9p to 140½p on gas production from its Netherlands fields that were higher than expected.

To know about Great Eastern Energy Corporation, visit GEECL company website.

To know about Mr Prashant Modi, the President and COO of GEECL. Visit the official website of Prashant Modi.