Trading under the ticker ‘SEY’, the company’s stock opened in morning trading at 32c a share, settling slightly to 28.5c at the end of the day.

The company is being chaired by Michael Fry, who stood down as a founding director of Solimar – previously Livingstone Petroleum – at the end of last month.

Also on Sunset’s board is Red Fork Energy's managing director David Prentice as an executive director.

In the prospectus, Sunset said it was farming-in to earn a 50% interest in Solimar’s Maricopa and Deer Creek prospects, in the petrolific San Joaquin Basin, by wholly-funding the cost of drilling one well on each prospect.

Once both wells are drilled, all costs and revenues from the projects would be shared 50:50.

“The directors believe the prospects have the potential to deliver commercial oil production,” Fry said.

“The independent geologist's reports have identified potential development well locations, which will form the basis of initial well locations and development opportunities.”

The Deer Creek Prospect is in the southeastern part of the San Joaquin Basin, while the Maricopa prospect is within the Midway-Sunset oil field – one of the largest producers in California with 11,000 wells and 2.8 billion barrels of production to date.

The San Joaquin Basin, one of the major structural features of California, lies between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada.

The basin's complex geologic history has resulted in the generation and entrapment of several tens of billions of barrels of oil.