Po Valley Energy (PVE)

Shares / Stock Code

PVE

Stock Exchange / Sharemarket

ax

Po Valley Energy (PVE) is an independent Italian oil and gas company. The company holds four gas permits and an application permit in the Po Valley of Italy. The company's assets include the Santa Maddalena, Sillaro, Vitalba and Pandino gas reserves. The company has a business office in Rome (Italy) however its headquarters is situated in Perth. PVE was listed on the Australian stockmarket (ASX) in December 2004.

The Po Valley, between the Alps and the Apennines is one of the main gas production zones in Italy. All of the energy fields situated in the Valley are onshore and in very close proximity to the pipeline grid and and consumers in northern Italy. The Company, through its subsidiaries Northsun Italia S.p.A and Po Valley Operations Pty Ltd holds 11 license areas, two of which includes Sillaro and Castello.

Oil is sold to the nearest refinery at the spot price, while gas tends to be sold on long term contracts with price escalators linked to inflation. Gas arrangements are usually with utilities, large industrial users and steel plants. Because of the global nature of the oil market, every oil producer is a competitor. For gas producers, competition is much more localised and depends on pipeline access to markets. Key competitors include Rio Tinto, BHP, CH4 Gas Ltd (CHX) and Planet Gas (PGS).

Po Valley Energy has been very active on the gas field development front and in expanding the potential for future projects through new licence applications. The Company started with 3 gas development fields, Sillaro, Castello (Vitalba) and S. Alberto (S. Maddalena), which are steadily heading into production, and are now followed by two larger scale appraisal projects (Bezzecca and Fantuzza), 10 new gas prospects and a further two oil prospects, one of which (Rovagnate) is very large scale.