Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: Can I have your recommendation on the recovery prospects for Zargon Oil & Gas? Thank you very much.

Article Excerpt

A: Zargon Oil & Gas, $0.51, symbol ZAR on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 30.7 million; Market cap: $16.3 million; www.zargon.ca) produces natural gas and oil in Alberta and North Dakota. Its output is 80% oil and 20% gas. Zargon continues to spend heavily on the development of its oil recovery project at Little Bow, Alberta. Extracting that oil depends on alkaline surfactant polymers (ASP). Drillers used ASP to flood oil wells when water is no longer effective at freeing trapped oil. The alkali in the mixture gets in the rock and releases the oil. In the three months ended March 31, 2017, Zargon’s production fell 38.2%, to an average of 2,579 barrels of oil equivalent per day from 4,176 barrels a year earlier. The drop was mostly due to the company’s sale of its assets in Southeast Saskatchewan for $86.8 million on September 1, 2016. Zargon used the proceeds to pay down all of its bank debt. Oil and gas sales rose slightly in…