So a £14 million investment added £63 million to Burren’s market capitalisation. Yet Finian O’Sullivan, the Irish founder and chief executive of the exploration and production company, says the market is yet to appreciate fully the significance of his company’s investment. “I can’t see how they could’ve. We haven’t told them what’s there.”

Others may take a more cynical view. They may suggest that irrespective of the quality of the HOEC assets and irrespective of the strengths shown to Burren, stock market investors are getting overexcited. The danger is that an oil and gas boom is developing bubble characteristics. And bubbles always burst.

HOEC’s main asset is the PY-1 gasfield, off India’s south-east coast. The field has government development approval and Mr O’Sullivan expects the capital cost to be about $110 million, including pipelines to onshore markets.

“There are gas-starved electricity generating stations sitting there capable of producing 530 megawatts. And they have got no gas,” he said.

“The development plans are basically that we would have gas in production by the end of 2006 or the start of 2007.

“We have got five wells drilled. We have to bring a platform on and drill eight development or production wells and we estimate that this field can get up to 50 million cubic feet of gas a day.”

Mr O’Sullivan is quick to admit that HOEC is not going to be a company-maker for Burren. It is not on the same scale — neither in terms of production nor potential — as Burren’s 35 per cent stake in M’Boundi, the promising oilfield in Congo-Brazzaville. But India fits into Burren’s decade-old strategy of building a portfolio of producing assets that throw off enough free cash to invest in new opportunities.

Why India, given that there are no geographical synergies with Burren’s other assets, in Congo and Turkmenistan? Mr O’Sullivan says: “I don’t think it (India) has got huge oil. I don’t think it’s got huge gas, and when I talk huge I mean it hasn’t got M’Boundi-style or Russian-style oil or gas.

“But what it has got is a very significant energy market sitting right there and if you basically pick up a 300 billion cubic feet gasfield (through HOEC), you have a market sitting there that is dying for the stuff and that makes it very, very interesting.”

Investors appear hooked. The Burren story is symptomatic of one of the main themes being played out on London’s share market. There is a great appetite for all things oil and gas. That appetite is fuelled by an oil price that set a new record of $54.30 a barrel in London trading last week.

Burren’s shares, listed on the London Stock Exchange in December 2003, have soared from their 130p issue price to Friday’s 522p close. The company’s market capitalisation, in turn, has increased from £175 million at the time of listing to £720 million.

It is a stunning value to be attributed to a company with small-scale oil production in Turkmenistan and Congo, a development project in India, exploration opportunities in Egypt and a tanker fleet that ferries oil from the Caspian Sea.Burren expects to produce only about eight million barrels of oil this year, worth £230 million in sales value. The profit will be a small fraction of that.

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