Samson Oil & Gas Limited is an independent exploration and production company with principal operations in the Western United States. The company is dual listed on the NYSE AMEX and the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and trades under the ticker “SSN”. Although the company’s corporate offices are located in Perth, Australia, senior management and technical staff operate out of Lakewood, Colorado (a Denver suburb).
Samson’s core areas of operation are in the Niobrara oil play of the Denver‐ Julesburg Basin (Wyoming portion) and the Bakken oil shale play in North Dakota.
As of June 30, 2009, Samson had proved reserves of 11.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent (Bcfe) with approximately 96% natural gas. For the three months ended June 30, 2010, Samson produced an average of 591 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD), a 62.5% sequential increase from the prior quarter. Importantly, daily oil production grew by 357% from the prior quarter to 255 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) up from 56 BOPD, driven by the company’s Bakken drilling program.
In 2005, the company’s board of directors appointed Mr. Terry Barr to the position of Managing Director. Since then, Mr. Barr has assembled a management and technical team focused on exploring for and developing a portfolio of high‐quality oil and natural gas assets (see Management Team section later in this report for biographies of key team members).
One of the company’s most promising projects developed by the team is Samson’s Hawk Springs oil project, focused on the Niobrara oil play in the Goshen County Uplift (Goshen County, Wyoming). Note that all monetary values in this report are denominated in US dollars, unless specified otherwise.
Business Strategy
Samson’s business strategy is focused on growing production and reserves by aggressively developing its oil projects in the Niobrara and Bakken oil plays. To fund that growth, Samson plans to use the proceeds from the sale of a portion of its Hawk Springs leasehold and farm‐down its interest with leading industry partners in the Hawk Springs operated acreage the company retained.