Amerisur confident on targets, eyes expansion

Amerisur Resources is confident of lifting its Colombian oil production more than tenfold by the end of 2.012, generating cash to fund expansion elsewhere in South America, the oil firm's chairman said in an interview.

Amerisur is on track to start drilling the first well in a planned nine well programme at its Platanillo block in southern Colombia early next year, which it believes will boost production to 5,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from the current level of around 400 bopd.

"We've assumed 1,500 barrels a day for each well," Chairman Giles Clarke, the founder of storage chain Safestore, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"Clearly if the wells are capable of producing 1,500 barrels and we drill more than four wells, we're going to be producing way more than 5,000 bopd," he added.

Should Amerisur meet its output targets, which it laid out earlier in the year, analysts at Royal Bank of Canada estimate it will be generating revenues of $60 million per year in the full-year 2012, rising to $180 million in 2.013.

The company plans to spend future cash on undertaking exploration at its blocks in Paraguay as well as making acquisitions in South America.

"We're looking at businesses in Colombia. Other people who have got blocks and no capital," said Clarke, confirming that the firm is actively on the acquisition trail but added a deal was unlikely before new production targets are met next year.

"(There are) a lot of Canadian firms which are quite interesting. Colombia and Peru are areas of interest."

Shares in Amerisur, in which Clarke owns a 1.15 percent stake, were flat at 16 pence at 1253 GMT, valuing the firm at 146.6 million pounds.