Aurelian Oil & Gas shares rise on gas sale

LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in AIM-listed Aurelian Oil & Gas (AUL.L) jumped more than 20 percent on Monday after a well it drilled in Romania struck gas and the company sealed a gas sales agreement in Poland.

"The conclusion of an agreement for the sale of our gas from Siekierki ... will enable us to proceed with the initial drilling program and to finalize our options for financing the full development," Rowen Bainbridge, chief executive officer of Aurelian, said.

The agreement is with Kulczyk Investments SA for the sale of gas produced from the Siekierki field for $9.328 per thousand cubic feet.

Lionel Therond, an analyst at Fox-Davies Capital, said the agreement is a good price and noted the share price boost came a month after Aurelian shares fell 29 percent on disappointing results from its Voitinel-1 well in Romania.

"Voitinel-1 seems also to be coming in better than expected initially," Therond said.

CEO Bainbridge said: "As we reported in September, the deeper prospects in Voitinel were unfortunately dry but logs of two shallower sands looked interesting and so we proceeded to assess their potential further."

Bainbridge said the company will continue to test the zone over the next few weeks.

Shares in Aurelian were up 17.7 percent at 19.25 pence at 1020 GMT, having risen as high as 20.95p.

(Reporting by Sharon Lindores; Editing by David Holmes)