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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Oil & Gas Companies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kerm Yerman who wrote (9673)	3/4/2003 10:12:07 AM
From: Kerm Yerman	Respond to of 24922

Portfolio Stock / NIKO Resources Ltd. Niko rides discoveries to growth Firm's shares triple on TSX in one year Scott Haggett Calgary Herald Tuesday, March 04, 2003 It's become a bit easier for Edward Sampson. Sampson, executive chairman of Calgary-based Niko Resources Ltd., has a success story to tell a group of nearly 100 institutional investors from the U.S. and Canada at the annual East Coast Canadian Energy Conference. His company's shares have tripled in the past year as interest grows in the potential of its massive natural gas discoveries in and offshore India, making the company's stock one of the best performers on the Toronto Stock Exchange in the past year. Indeed, one of the fields Niko and its partners discovered off India's east coast contains an estimated seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas, more than twice what's so far been found offshore Nova Scotia, and it has other properties where gas production is expected to grow to 300 million cubic feet a day from 20 million cubic feet a day last year. Such massive fields and such high expectations have made selling the company's potential easier for Sampson, who's come to New York in order to reach existing shareholders and tap into new pools of potential investors. "We've got a really strong U.S. presence among our shareholder base," Sampson says. "Probably 30 per cent of our stock is held here and our reception has been very good. Our presentation was very well received." As Niko has grown, more and more of its shares are being held by institutional investors, bought for pension, hedge and mutual funds. Reaching those big pools of cash, both in Canada and the United States means presenting to the increasingly popular investment conferences hosted either by groups -- such as Calgary's annual investment conference, held by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, or by investment dealers such as FirstEnergy Capital Corp., which is hosting this meeting. And the hotter the stock, the bigger the audience. "We had a substantial crowd. It was a good audience, with good questions," Sampson says "Certainly a big difference from the start up days, but it's been a long time coming, too." It's a similar story for Compton Petroleum Corp., a mid-sized company that focuses on producing natural gas from its Alberta properties. Ernie Sapieha, chief executive of the Calgary-based Compton, says interest in the 10-year-old company among institutional investors is rising as the price of gas skirts two-year highs amid cold winter temperatures and declining production and storage levels of the commodity throughout the continent. "We've had a number of meetings (with investors) aside from the conference," Sapieha says. "The natural gas and oil industry are getting a pretty good response. We're certainly getting more interest." The outlook for natural gas is one of the foremost questions for the institutional investors. Peter Brieger, chairman of Toronto-based GlobeInvest Capital Management Inc., says he's looking at gas-leveraged companies and trusts, including Shiningbank Energy Trust and Compton, that will profit from continuing high gas prices, as well as oilfield service companies which operate in niches, such as Pason Systems Inc. or Trican Well Service Ltd. He's also watching companies such as Navigo Energy Inc., a Calgary-based junior company exploring for oil and gas within Alberta, while Niko could be a proxy for investing in rising gas demand in Asia. "Niko is an amazing story," Brieger says. "Here you have a commodity supplier to India." For Brieger, investment forums such as this one are work, checking out investment opportunities and meeting with company managers prior before deciding to invest. "How else could I see 45 companies in two-and-a-half days?" he says.