An Irish-owned oil exploration company has become the best-performing share on the Dublin stock exchange due to its success in drilling the oil fields of Siberia.
Petroneft has seen a rise of 148 per cent in its share price this year alone and, with a significant increase in its production levels predicted, only looks set to continue on its rapid rise.
The company pumping oil from deposits more than 2.5 kilometres under the Siberian snow, in a area further away from Moscow than Dublin is. Petroneft hopes to extract 4,000 barrels a day this year, and aims to double the amount next year before adding the same amount again the following year.
Chief financial officer, Paul Dowling, said the company is meeting its own target ahead of schedule, and has drawn on some setbacks from the recession to help benefit the Irish economy as a whole.
"[The Lehman Brothers collapse] was a blessing in disguise," he said. "We had an agreement to borrow $60m the week Lehman went belly up and when oil was $140 a barrel. Everything was predicated on high costs. Instead, we shut up shop for nine months and got most of what we need at around 40 per cent less than what we would have paid."
He said the key to navigating the notorious Russian bureaucracy is to do everything exactly as they stipulate. "It's true that it's a big bureaucracy but you just have to do the right thing," he said.
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