The frontier explorer attempted to raise $5.5 million through an initial public offer that ended on Monday.

But ABC News today reported that the company would not go ahead with the float, due to poor investor interest following lower oil prices and demand for Telstra shares.

Chairman Denzel Griffiths reportedly said NT Oil would reconsider its options in the new year.

Options included rolling in with an existing oil company, and attracting private funds from either Australia or overseas, he told the broadcaster.

"We’ll regroup and we’ll be back to the market one way or another in the new year,” Griffiths said.

Last month, the company said it was planning to use cashflow from oil production in an Clay County, northern Texas to fund a wildcat exploration program in Australia.

The company’s major exploration play in Australia is the Georgina Basin in the Northern Territory, where it has two exploration permit applications totalling 30,000 square kilometres.

The company has previously said the Georgina Basin’s prospectivity was confirmed by oil shows and gas flows from several previous wells, good quality reservoir rocks and geological similarities with the Tarin (China) and east Siberian (Russia) oil provinces.

NT Oil plans to use infrared satellite imagery, water well analysis, magnetic data and geochemical ground surveys in the basin to define areas for seismic surveying and then drilling, over the next two years.

Founded in 2004, the company’s other major Australian interest is a farm-in to acquire a 25% stake in the Moriary Prospect held by Empire Oil in EP426 in the Perth Basin.