Avanti Energy Inc (CVE:AVN) sees investment opportunities, despite Italy’s looming constitutional referendum.
Reporting its third quarter results in which assets swelled to C$5.2mln in the three months ended Sept 30 versus C$4.7mln, the company said its major market Italy is a high value gas market and with recent changes and improvements to the oil and gas legislation, the Company is particularly focused on leveraging its activities in Italy to create a larger, multi-property, development oriented portfolio.
“The Company believes that its strategy to focus on distressed, reserve-based, natural gas weighted acquisitions in Italy will yield additional investment opportunities,” it said with its results.
“Management continues to monitor the fallout from low commodity prices. While there is considerable distress within the industry, high quality opportunities such as Colle Santo remain scarce. In the short term management will focus its efforts on reaching project sanction at Colle Santo during Q4 and identifying synergistic producing property acquisitions in Italy.”
On the December 4 Italian constitutional reform referendum, which proposes to dilute the powers of the Senate often blamed for holding up legislation, the company said that while a “yes” vote could yield some positive results for industrial development in Italy, “we remain confident in the current rules and regulations that are in place, and of our ability to develop Colle Santo in a way that benefits all stakeholders. It should be noted that Italy’s referendum is not a Brexit type vote as it has nothing to do with staying in the European Union. However, it is somewhat like Brexit in that regardless of the outcome, business will go on. If a “no” vote prevails, we will find ourselves in the same regulatory environment that we started and are currently in.”