A board meeting is scheduled to be held in the Capital next Wednesday, with the AGM booked for the following day. However, there should be none of the fireworks that have characterised some of its meetings of recent years.
From late 1999 minority stakeholder Todd Energy and Australia's Cable and Telecoms, one of Cue's then biggest shareholders with a 30% stake, were at loggerheads when C & T tried to transform it from an oil company into a technology investor. The war of words only ceased about a year ago, when, at last year's AGM, company chairman Richard Tweedie reported that the dissention which had lead to High Court action had been resolved and all legal actions had ceased.
Today Tweedie, who is also Todd Energy chief executive, told EnergyReview.Net that good progress had been made in the past year as Cue concentrated on being an oil and gas exploration and production company.
During 2000-01 the company made an after-tax profit of $NZ1.9 million, compared with the $NZ11.8 million loss of the previous 12 months. The 2001-02 year had seen that small profit double to $NZ3.9 million, after writing off exploration costs of $NZ4.1 million.
However, he said Cue Energy, in which Todd Energy holds a 10% share, still tended to be overlooked as an oil and gas explorer, with its shares trading at around NZ6c.
"Although Cue is small, it has production, no debt, useful cash, and has excellent upside. There is potential to create significant added value for shareholders."
Tweedie said Cue had some nice assets in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. It had production in PNG in the SE Gobe field and was, along with Santos and Oil Search, currently drilling the Bilip-1 well.
The company, and partners Santos and El Paso, were also involved in the Oyong oil-gas project in Indonesia, which was getting very close to a development decision, with an additional wildcat well planned for late this year.
The Sampang licence (which included Oyong) had a number of very interesting leads, some of which would definitely be drilled, said Tweedie.
Cue also had useful gas reserves in PNG, which will be monitised should the PNG-Queensland pipeline project go ahead.
Cue is one of New Zealand's smallest listed companies with a market capitalisation of just $NZ13 million.
