Southern Pacific Resource Corp said on Wednesday it has launched a strategic review of its business that could include an outright sale as it looks to boost its flagging share price and find the cash to expand its oil sands project. The company, whose market capitalization is C$95.5 million ($89.9 million), is developing the small STP-McKay thermal oil sands project in Alberta and produces heavy oil in Saskatchewan. The two operations have a combined output of 4,000 barrels per day.Southern Pacific shares have fallen 81 percent over the past 12 months on disappointing results from its oil sands project.The company said on Wednesday that the year-old project, designed to eventually produce 12,000 barrels of bitumen per day, averaged just 1,714 bpd in November. It said it was assessing methods to boost output from its wells.The company forecast output of 7,000 barrels per day from the project by the first quarter of 2015 and said it plans additional drilling in order to boost production to the project's capacity at an estimated cost of C$51 million.
Southern Pacific Resource Corp. (Southern Pacific) is engaged in the acquisition and development of heavy oil and bitumen producing properties, with a focus on thermal extraction in-situ oil sands projects in the Western Canadian sedimentary basin. Shares of STP fell by 31.25% or $-0.075/share to $0.16. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $0.23 and as high as $1.38. On average, 1444960 shares of STP.TO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 8244015.
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