Interview with Alex Underwood, Managing Director of Empire Energy (ASX: EEG)

Empire Energy, an ASX listed company, is an active developer in the Betaloo Basin, Australia's Northern Territory, with a growing resource and advancing pilot study. The company has drilled significant horizontal wells over the past year and observed encouraging flow rates from these wells. They also reported a substantial resource upgrade, now holding 1.7 trillion cubic feet of independently assessed discovered resource.

The company's focus is shifting towards pilot production, including all the groundwork needed to arrive at a final investment decision for the project. They aim to start construction in the coming year and move into production shortly after. The end goal is to make the company attractive to the market and potential acquirers.

Empire Energy has a prospective resource of over 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, which could provide significant LNG exports. They are aiming to de-risk this vast resource and see a potential for substantial value creation, similar to the experiences of other unconventional oil and gas companies in Australia and the US.

The company plans to bring large international oil and gas companies into the project as joint venture partners. However, these potential partners need to see that the gas can be commercially extracted before making significant investments. The pilot project, therefore, aims to provide longer-term flow data and repeatability of results to convince potential future partners.

The market opportunity for Empire Energy's gas is strong, with Australia facing significant shortages on its East Coast. The company is receiving strong interest for gas from the pilot project and views this as a significant driver of near-term value.