GeoPetro Hosts Portland, Oregon Investor Presentation

On Thursday of last week, Eric Doshi, Vice President of Corporate Development for GeoPetro Resources (NYSE-Amex: GPR), traveled to Portland, Oregon.  Mr. Doshi’s travels were the result of a due diligence luncheon which he was hosting at The Heathman Hotel for a select group of investment professionals.  Mr. Doshi met with representatives from leading investment firms such as UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Wedbush Securities, to whom he provided a general corporate update, detailed presentations on the Company’s properties, and an overview of the Company’s current opportunities, followed by a question and answer session.  When the answer to the final question was finished, Mr. Doshi realized his audience had been there for slightly more than two hours, almost an hour more than he had originally anticipated, and not one person left early. 

When we asked him about it, Mr. Doshi commented, “The presentation could not have gone any better and my audience could not have been more in tune with what we were doing.  It was like going to a really good movie and when it’s over, you can’t believe nearly three hours have gone by.  That’s how good it was.”

Below is  recap of GeoPetro’s value drivers as outlined in last week’s investor presentation.  In short, GeoPetro’s message was that it has and will continue to move forward on several fronts, and while some of these efforts may not be readily visible nor reflected in the Company’s share price, once they are completed – the market perception could change very quickly.

Proven Producer –  GeoPetro’s Madisonville, Texas natural gas field is currently producing at the rate of  7 million cubic feet per day. GeoPetro is looking to put two additional completed wells online in the near to mid-term, bringing production up to an estimated 25 to 30 million cubic feet per day. Six additional structures are productive below & GeoPetro is looking for the right JV partner to test these lower structures in the near to mid term.

Ongoing Exploration –  GeoPetro’s California property in Kern County borders Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) land, where OXY recently announced a 150 – 250 million barrel oil equivalent discovery. GeoPetro is activley looking to bring on a strategic partner to drill a test well targeting a 50 to 75 million barrel field on this prospect.

Recent Alaska Transaction – GeoPetro recently announced the sale of their 123,000 acre land position in the Cook Inlet area of Alaska to Linc Energy – retaining a lucrative 10% net over-riding (gross) royalty. First test well planned for mid 2010 targeting 1 TCF of gas.

Experienced Management – GeoPetro’s  team has a long and successful track record in creating growing energy enterprises. GeoPetro’s CEO, Mr. Stuart Doshi, was formerly with  Natomas, responsible for financial management of over $1 billion in annual energy revenue.

GeoPetro Announces 2009 Year End Results

GeoPetro Resources (NYSE-Amex: GPR) reported financial results for the year ended December 31, 2009.  According to Stuart Doshi, President and CEO of the Company, GeoPetro made significant progress in 2009 and first quarter 2010 despite the challenging environment we are currently facing.  In March of 2010, we announced the successful sale of our Alaskan Cook Inlet leases for cash and a significant retained royalty position.  We are also actively seeking industry partners to fund costs associated with drilling test wells on our Madisonville Deep and California projects.  The execution of farmout arrangements will reduce the Company’s capital exposure and allow it to receive reimbursement of some or all of its sunk costs associated with these projects.”

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GeoPetro CEO Further Defines Value of Recent Cook Inlet Property Sale to Linc Energy

GeoPetro Resources Corp (NYSE-Amex: GPR) recently announced the sale of one of their core properties -123,000 acres in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska – to Australia based Linc Energy. This looks to be a very lucrative opportunity for GeoPetro to grow their business as it not only brings in cash to their balance sheet ($1 million immediately and $4 million additional from any oil/natural gas production on the property) they also retain a 10% (on roughly 99% of the acreage) and 7% (on roughly 1% of the acreage) over-riding royalty – which means they get 10% (or 7%) of the total revenue stream created on this land package - and more importantly without having to put up any additional capital of their own for drilling, development or tie in expenses. With natural gas selling at a healthy premium in Alaska and GeoPetro targeting a TCF of gas at their first target – the Frontier Spirit – this could rack up huge net income for GeoPetro in the event of a commercial discovery of natural gas (a 10% over-riding royalty on a discovery of this size would net to GeoPetro interests roughly $700 million at today’s natural gas prices). So we recently sat down with Stuart Doshi, GeoPetro’s CEO to get some more insight to this transaction, one that in our estimation hasn’t been perceived correctly by the marketplace as evidenced by how the stock has traded since the announcement, and one that creates what we see as a tremendous opportunity in GeoPetro shares at this time.

During the interview, Stuart also updated us on several other fronts the Company is forging ahead on at this time including: their California property (which happens to be near what looks to be the epicenter of Occidental Petroleum’s huge discovery) as well as updates on their producing natural gas field in Madisonville, Texas, where they are working towards putting two shut-in wells on-line to increase production there to a targeted rate of 25 to 30 mcf per day, and their plans to bring on a JV partner to drill through the current producing zones to six new highly prospective zones below. 

Link to the recent press release:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GeoPetro-Resources-Company-prnews-740927444.html?x=0&.v=1

Here is the interview with Stuart Doshi, a pdf version of this interview is available at:
http://babybulls.com/PDF/GeoPetro_Interview_March_2010_Final.pdf
   

BabyBulls: Hi Stuart. Thanks for taking some time to talk with us today. Now, GeoPetro had a major announcement a couple of weeks ago regarding one of your North American project areas in Alaska. We wanted to spend a little time today on that transaction so that our subscribers can get a good understanding of what this news means for GeoPetro. So let’s start out with that announcement on March 1, 2010 which described the recent sale of your Cook Inlet Property in Alaska to Linc Energy Inc. Can you give our listeners a basic overview of this transaction?

Stuart Doshi: Sure, first of all you will recall that over the last five years we have acquired a 100% working interest in approximately 123,000 acres onshore in the Cook Inlet area of Alaska, which is in south-central Alaska. The acreage consists of two blocks – there is a Point Mackenzie Block which is about 12 miles northwest of the City of Anchorage and has approximately 77,000 acres and the balance of the acreage is a block known as the Trading Bay Block,  which is about 50 miles west of Anchorage across this body of water known as the Cook Inlet.  We think both of these blocks could be prolific in terms of major commercial accumulation of oil and gas.  The deal we did with Linc Energy is that we sold 100% of the working interest we have in these two blocks to an Australian company named Linc Energy and what we got for it first of all is US$1 million upfront, to be released to us upon approval of the assignment of the leases to Linc, US$4 million out of production, and then once we get that $4 million we have an overriding royalty that kicks in. We have three sets of leases, there are State of Alaska leases,  where we enjoy a 10% overriding royalty. There is Alaska Mental Health Trust acreage, where we also enjoy a 10% overriding royalty. And of the 123,000 acres that we have leased, we have less than 1% of that acreage in Cook Inlet Region Inc. leases which is a Native Alaska Corporation there, and on that acreage we enjoy a 7% overriding royalty interest. So this is really a strong set of terms for us.

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GEOPETRO RESOURCES UPDATE – Sale of Cook Inlet, Alaska Property to Linc Energy

GeoPetro Resources (NYSE AMEX: GPR) announced this morning the sale of their Cook Inlet, Alaska oil and gas property (123,000 onshore acres – consisting of two major prospects: the Point Mackenzie Prospect and the Trading Bay prospect ) to Linc Energy (Alaska) Inc.

Terms for the sale include a $1,000,000 up front cash payment (upon lease transfer) plus an additional $4 million to GeoPetro from any oil and gas sales resulting from production at the property, after which GeoPetro’s interests will then continue at either a 10% or a 7% overriding royalty (depending on the acreage block) on all production revenues resulting from the total project area.

Commenting on the successful Cook Inlet Project transaction, GeoPetro’s Chairman, President and CEO Stuart J. Doshi stated: “We are very pleased to have Linc as operator and working interest owner in the Alaska project. The sale will provide Linc a major foothold in the Cook Inlet. We look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship with Linc. Their significant commitment to the exploration and development of the Cook Inlet Project has confirmed our belief in the resource potential of this significant acreage position. This transaction is consistent with our business strategy of gaining control of key acreage in projects which individually have the potential to be ‘company makers’, performing extensive geologic and geophysical evaluations thereon, and leveraging through strategic transactions with other resource companies. It also allows us to further focus our human and capital resources on our remaining core area projects. Pursuing a diversified portfolio of high potential reserve targets has been a key Company strategy since inception. The significant resource potential of this Project coupled with our retained interest positions us for a significant enhancement of shareholder value upon a commercial discovery.”

Major News Release for GeoPetro Resources – Highlighting Lokern, CA Project

GeoPetro Resources Corporation (NYSE AMEX: GPR) released an overview of their Lokern, California property today which outlined the prospects for their 100% working interest in 1,280 acre located in Kern County. This is a particularly interesting energy prospect as it is in close proximity to the recently announced significant new discovery made by Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY), one  deemed by OXY to be the largest new energy discovery in California in the last 35 years.

GeoPetro expects that a well will be drilled, either by themselves or through a farmout arrangement with a third-party, to a depth sufficient to test the Stevens and deeper Carneros zones sometime in 2010. At this time the Company is in the process of permitting up to three drilling locations on the property.

The Lokern leasehold is in close proximity to the recent hydrocarbon discovery announced by Occidental Petroleum in July 2009. GeoPetro’s prospect is on trend with, and located immediately north of the prolific Elk Hills and Tule Elk fields, which have combined reserves greater than 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

 In the release GeoPetro announced that the primary exploration objectives at this property are the Miocene Stevens formation and the deeper Carneros member of the Temblor formation. The secondary objectives include the Miocene Reef Ridge and Pliocene Etchegoin sands.

GeoPetro Resources President and CEO, Mr. Stuart Doshi commented in the release:  “California has always been on our radar screen due to its large potential associated with the high-quality, oil-prone reservoirs present in the region and our belief that the deeper potential in the San Joaquin Basin is significantly underexplored. We were able to assemble the land position in our Lokern Project with a modest investment well ahead of Occidental’s announcement. We believe industry interest in this area, on the heels of the recently announced Occidental discovery, should allow us to secure an industry partner or otherwise obtain the necessary capital to undertake drilling and evaluation of our acreage position. Subject to permitting, this should take place next year.

“Pursuing a diverse portfolio of both oil and gas prone reserve targets has been a Company strategy since inception. Adding crude oil potential, or possibly condensate rich natural gas, to our resource mix may help mitigate commodity price risk and may further provide a separate growth vehicle that complements our other properties.”

This is potentially huge news for GeoPetro and confirmation of this property’s value via a successful test-well could very well be a “Company Maker” event – so we are quite excited about this announcement and see some very stong investment potential in GeoPetro at this time. We commented about GeoPetro’s outstanding list of highly prospective energy prospects in this blog last week and today’s release makes us even more bullish regarding both their near, and longer term prospects – especially in light of the fact that the Company is planning to take steps to materially increase production at their Madisonville natural gas project in East Texas during the first quarter of 2010.

The recent blog post on GeoPetro is located here, which we recommend reading as soon as possible if you haven’t already – and a link to today’s full press release is available here

Prospects for Natural Gas Create Huge Opportunity for GeoPetro Resources in 2010

GeoPetro Resources Company (NYSE-Amex: GPR) is a San Francisco based exploration and production energy company which is well positioned to benefit from a trend we see developing in the natural gas market. Over the past few weeks, natural gas prices have moved up quietly. The Henry Hub spot price is now just over $5.50 per mcf and spot prices in the Northeast are approaching $8.50 per mcf. Admittedly, these price increases reflect freezing temperatures across the country, including this past weekend’s blizzard that ravaged much of the East. Significantly, the recent price escalation shows just how quickly natural gas pricing can change. On top of which we believe there are several near and mid-term fundamentals which could move natural gas above $7.00 per mcf for the foreseeable future, at which price it becomes impossible to ignore natural gas producers such as GeoPetro Resources.

Over the last 30 to 60 days, there have been two very big bets placed on the prospect of rising energy costs in the United States. The first was the purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad by sage investor Warren Buffet. At $26.5 billion, it was his largest transaction ever. And while this is principally a bet on the economic recovery of the U.S., Buffet did state that one of his reasons for this acquisition was BNI’s cost-effective way of moving goods. Attention to distribution will be even more pronounced in a rising cost energy environment, remember gas above $4.00 per gallon and what that did to the cost of moving goods across the country by truck.

The second big deal was Exxon’s acquisition of XTO Energy in and all stock deal valued at approximately $41 billion. XTO has a large percentage of its energy holdings in unconventional resources known as shale gas basins, which require natural gas prices of $6.00-$7.00 per mcf in order to be economical.

GeoPetro Resources Due Diligence Luncheon (Part I)

Last Wednesday, we had the opportunity and privilege to host a due diligence luncheon for GeoPetro Resources Company (NYSE-Amex: GPR) in what has come to be known as America’s Finest City, San Diego, California.  And we decided that it would be a heck of a lot cheaper for us to bring the Company to you than to bring you to the Company.  To this end, we are pleased to provide you with Part I of a two part series featuring Eric Doshi and Chris Steinhauser of GeoPetro Resources.  Eric and Chris do a terrific job discussing the Company’s overall strategy as well as the individual strategy for each of its “Company Maker” projects.  Click on the picutre below to watch the video.

GeoPetro Raises $3.8 Million in Series B Preferred

GeoPetro Resources Company (NYSE Amex: GPR) announced today that between August 3, 2009 and October 9, 2009 the Company raised $3,792,250 from the placement of 5,056,328 shares of Series B Convertible Preferred Stock. The Series B Preferred was sold for a purchase price of $0.75 per share and pays an annual dividend of $0.06 per share (8%) to investors.  The Series B Convertible Shares are redeemable by the Company for cash two years after the issuance date for the face amount plus any accrued interest payable at the time of redemption. The shares are convertible by the holder at any time at the rate of $0.75 per share and convert automatiacally in the event that GeoPetro shares trade above the price of $1.50 for ten consecutive trading days. 

This is another excellent announcement from GeoPetro and gives the Company a nice cash position and solid base from which they can continue to grow their ongoing gas production at the Madisonville, TX property – and look to advance some of their additional properties/projects including their Lokern, California property which is located adjacent to Occidental Petroleum’s recent major oil discovery in Kern County, CA – which OXY believes is the most significant energy discovery in California in the last 35 years.

Oil and gas have been on the move lately with oil testing the $75 per barrel rate and natural gas strengthening back to hover right around $4 per mcf on a cash basis with the December delivery NYMEX strip price at $5.52 per mcf. A number of energy analysts are predicting a return to higher energy prices in 2010, which could make both GeoPetro’s production and development properties grow significantly in value from here.

To view the full 8-K release on Edgar click here

GeoPetro Resources IPAA Presentation Now Available

GeoPetro Resources’ (NYSE AMEX: GPR) President and CEO, Mr. Stuart Doshi addressed the general assembly at the 2009 IPAA OGIS Conference (Independent Petroleum Association of America – Oil and Gas Investement Symposium) this morning at 8:00 am. During the roughly 25 minute presentation, Stuart reviewed GeoPetro’s current business condition and future exploration/development plans at their five primary oil and gas target project areas which include:

• Madisonville, TX – where the Company owns and maintains a midstream gas treatment facility and producing natural gas field. Projected production to 30 mmcf/day with addition of 2 shut in wells. Also, 18,000 foot exploratory well planned for 2010 to test Bossier Deep play, which has proven to be prolific in the region with 40 to 90 mmcf per day producers put in by Encana.
• Lokern oil project, located in Kern County, CA directly adjacent to the recent major oil discovery (150 to 250 mmbo) announced by Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY). A Stevens/Caneros test well is planned for 2010. 
• Natural gas target in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska (where natural gas is getting a healthy premium to lower 48 prices, recently as high as $8 to $9 per mcf).
• Natural gas target in Swan Hills, Alberta, Canada. A Devonian reef well is planned for 2010.
•  Bengara II field in Indonesia – where the Company has a 12% working interest carried thru $60 million in development capital from CNPC.

To hear the full presentation (which is accompanied by the Company’s ppt presentation) click on the graphic below:

GeoPetro Resource’s Lokern Property Borders OXY’s 150-250 Million Barrel California Oil Discovery

GeoPetro’s California Property Borders OXY Discovery – Please find below a link to the most recent corporate presentation from GeoPetro that we just received yesterday. Please take special notice to page 19 that shows the proximity of their Lokern property (Kern County) to the recent mammoth oil discovery by Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY). You couldn’t be any closer to this discovery than GeoPetro is. We knew this was close, but didn’t know until we saw this report yesterday just how close this property is to ground zero of this 150 to 250 million barrel discovery.

GeoPetro Resources Corporate Report – September 2009

GeoPetro is targeting a 75 million barrel oil field at this property with a Stevens/Caneros test planned for 2010.

GeoPetro Resources Company (NYSE AMEX:GPR) will be presenting at this year’s IPAA OGIS (Oil and Gas Investment Symposium) being held at the San Francisco Palace Hotel on September 29 thru October 1, 2009.

GeoPetro will be presenting to the full audience on Tuesday, September 29th at 8:00 am. GeoPetro will also have two break-out sessions where attendees can meet with their management team in an informal setting and discuss GeoPetro’s growth strategy going forward in detail. Those break-out sessions are scheduled for September 29th and 30th between 10 and 11 am and will be held in the Napa room.

Southern California Broker/Manager Meetings in October 2009 Also, GeoPetro Resources will be conducing due diligence meetings with current and prospective investors, brokers and fund managers in the Southern California area on October 21 (San Diego – Luncheon and 1×1 meetings) and October 22 (Irvine/Newport – Luncheon and 1×1 meetings).

If you would like to attend one of these luncheons or schedule to meet with GeoPetro’s team during their Southern California road trip just send an email to info@babybulls.com with “GeoPetro Resources” in the subject line along with your contact information.