Empyrean Energy (LON:EME) shares advanced on Friday as a significant shareholder increased his stake in the company.
Richard Appleby, who has been buying up the shares in recent months, now has interest 9.1mln shares, which represents 4.12% of the company’s shares.
The AIM quoted firm has a 3% stake in the Sugarloaf area, in the Eagle Ford shale.
Marathon, the operator, is preparing to step up drilling in this year and the prospect of continued production growth is the driving force behind the AIM quoted shares recent performance.
Empyrean shares have doubled in value since the turn of the year, and today this afternoon added another 7% to trade at 17p each.
Last month, Empyrean revealed that net production averaged 904 barrels a day, in the three months to December 31, which was 92% better than the same period of the year before.
This comes from a step up in drilling last year, which has increased the number of producing wells to 119 currently, with five more in the process of coming online at the moment.
But, over the next twelve months the pace of drilling will increase even more as Marathon plans to drill between 100 to 110 new wells.
