PETROLEUM
Through subsidiaries, UMC Energy plc has acquired one on-shore (PPL 378) and two off-shore (PPLs 374 and 375) Petroleum Prospecting Licences in Papua New Guinea.
The Company has retained consulting petroleum engineers to further examine and report on the presently available published geological data on the underlying areas of these licences.
The work expenditure commitments on the three PPLs in the first two years, totalling US$600,000, will be met from the Company's existing funding arrangements with Natasa Mining Ltd. Duringh the first year of the expenditure commitment programme, the Company will, upon receipt of the petroleum consultants' reports on past exploration carried out on the PPLs, decide on the most appropriate development options, including the possibility of seeking farm-in partners.
URANIUM
The Company owns an 80% equity interest in URAMAD S.A. URAMAD S.A. holds a number of exploration permits issued by the government of Madagascar (the "Exploration Permits").
The Exploration Permits, which have been granted for 10 years expiring in 2015 and 2016, are located in the Morondava Basin in western Madagascar, which is infilled and layered with sediments, most notably the Karoo formation that hosts uranium mineralisation.
The areas were previously identified and explored during the uranium cycles of 1956 to 1963 and 1979 to 1982 by the United Nations (PUND) and the Office of National Mines and Strategic Industries, a Malagasy State body, ("OMNIS") respectively. Later, the French uranium company Cogema took on large permits and continued regional exploration that terminated in the late 1990s with the downturn in uranium prices and demand.
URAMAD is the owner of a data base for the Morondava Basin that includes the results of airborne geophysical and radiometric surveys, drill logs for 790 drill holes (approximately 83,000 metres of drilling) with indicated uranium values, and visible uranium mineralisation associated with targets picked from 7,000 radioactive anomalies, recorded and plotted.