Prominence Energy (ASX: PRM) has received a strategic $389,000 investment from North Sea oil and gas explorer Hartshead Resources (ASX: HHR) via a private placement.

After the acquisition of 77.8 million shares at $0.005 per share, Hartshead will hold a 19.99% stake in Prominence.

The company has also reported a number of board and management changes, with managing director Alex Parks retiring, highly-regarded industry figure Bevan Tarratt becoming an executive director and Quinton Meyers named a non-executive director.

‘Exciting new phase’

“This is the start of an exciting new phase in the company’s development,” chair Ian McCubbing said.

“Hartshead is a successful explorer moving along the development pathway to becoming a significant UK gas producer [and] Prominence is very pleased to attract HHR as a strategic investor in our company.”

The investment from Hartshead follows Prominence’s successful $1,550,000 capital raising, finalised in mid-May 2024.

Proceeds from the raising will be primarily used to fund further technical studies and ongoing farmout activities for its Big Apple offshore project.

Big Apple target

The Big Apple prospect is located approximately 200 kilometres south of Houston, with Prominence the operator of the lease and holding a net revenue interest of 80.25%.

The company’s provisional interpretation of the seismic data identified the presence of a closed structure with a most likely area of 30 sq km.

The sand is interpreted to be approximately 43m thick in the main area of the field, with a second shallower anomaly interpreted to be approximately 15m thick and cover an area of 15 sq km.

Prominence has purchased field data for three of the key two-dimensional lines crossing the structure to conduct trial reprocessing of the data and evaluate the value of reprocessing a full 2D dataset over the prospect.