Tender Digs For Gold, Platinum In Morocco

• Tim Branch, Vice President of Prospectiuni SA: "Iran is a success story for us."

After having prospected potential gold and platinum deposits in Morocco, the management of Prospectiuni SA (controlled by Romanian businessman Ovidiu Tender) seems quite confident that the company will soon start prospecting for oil, too.

"Prospectiuni had a team in Morocco and we expect to perform a seismic exploration soon to determine the oil-bearing potential," Prospectiuni Vice President for International Business Development Tim Branch told BURSA.

The company"s business strategy has focused on entering foreign markets that the major companies in this industry usually avoid because of their political and economic instability. The Middle East, North Africa and South America were given as examples in this respect by Ovidiu Tender in an interview given to BURSA last spring.

"We continue to pay distinct attention to Syria, Tunisia, Turkey Morocco and, perhaps, Algeria, although there are several security issues there that must be taken into account. We have excluded Libya from the start, because the market there is oversaturated with major companies, that leave virtually no room for smaller players. Seismic exploration in Libya requires enormous capital expenses and therefore poses too high a risk for us. Nevertheless, several North African countries remain attractive to us in terms of staging our expansion to these markets," Tim Branch further told BURSA.

The management of Prospectiuni SA is confident that the Middle East, and Iran in particular, remains the region with the highest growth potential for Prospectiuni. "For the time being we have only one team deployed in Iran. It is a team of approximately 200 professionals. We have recently finished prospecting in the western part of Iran and we are currently moving close to the border with Iraq," Tim Branch said. "We are presently contemplating several tenders there and we hope to be able to deploy the second team. Iran is a success story for us," he added.

"It is much easier to win contracts in a country where you have already established a presence, because you have gained local experience and can prove to the oil companies that you can deliver performance. One advantage is that you can reduce the cost of transporting equipment and thus offer a better price to the customer," the Prospectiuni SA VP said.

Prospectiuni (RASDAQ:PRSN) has a market value of 167.3 million RON calculated on the price of 0.228 RON/share logged at closing bell on Friday. Tender SA controls the company with 69.48 per cent, whereas the financial investment firm SIF Muntenia holds 11.86 per cent. The Dutch-based investment fund MEI holds 6.15 per cent.