SHARES in Bowleven have plunged 10 per cent after the oil and firm which moved its head office from Edinburgh last year announced it had suffered a drilling disappointment.
Aim-listed Bowleven announced on Wednesday afternoon that the IM-6 well on the Etinde permit off Cameroon had failed to make an additional commercial discovery.
The well was the first drilled by Bowleven since a new management team took charge in the wake of former chief executive Kevin Hart and four other directors being voted off the board.
The directors were ousted following a campaign for change led by the Crown Ocean Capital investment firm founded by German financiers Christian Petersmann and Konstantin Stoyanov.
New chief executive Eli Chahin said on Wednesday that it was disappointing that the IM-6 well had not made an additional commercial discovery.
He said the data collected would help the company firm up estimates of the size of the existing 410 intra-Isongo find. Bowleven looks forward to drilling the prospective IE-4 well with its partners on Etinde, New Age of Cameroon and Russia’s Lukoil.
Up to $40m of Bowleven’s costs on the IM-6 and IE-4 wells will be carried by New Age and Lukoil under a $250m stake sale negotiated with the firms by Mr Hart in 2014.
Bowleven shares closed down 3.5p at 30.5p.
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