Buccaneer Energy has grown net production at its Pine Mills field in East Texas to approximately 135 barrels of oil per day, up from around 54 bopd when the current management team took over in mid-2024. The AIM-listed upstream oil and gas company said the field is generating positive free cash flow at current oil prices.
In May 2026, the Pine Mills and Fouke assets together generated approximately $250,000 in positive net cash flow at realised prices exceeding $100 a barrel. Buccaneer said operating costs have been reduced to the point where general and administrative expenses, mainly listing costs and staffing, now run well within the cash generated by existing production. That has let the company service interest on its legacy debt and begin paying it down, while maintaining what it called a constructive relationship with WAFD Bank, its lending facility provider.
Carlisle-1 buy backs the Fouke waterflood
The company's Fouke area waterflood programme remains on schedule to start in the late third quarter of 2026. Buccaneer bought the Carlisle-1 well earlier this year for $425,000, raising its working interest in the proposed waterflood unit to above 50 percent and giving it operational control of the programme. The well has added approximately 25 bopd and generated $65,000 of free cash flow in May alone, implying payback in just over six months. Combined with the Fouke enhanced recovery scheme and the Pine Mills Organic Oil Recovery (OOR) program, the Board expects to grow average net production toward approximately 250 bopd in the near term.
Recovery program cuts water handling
The OOR pilot, launched at the end of 2025 with Hunting PLC, has continued to show results. One treated well moved from a 90 percent water cut to effectively water-free production, a result sustained over four months. Buccaneer said power for water management is the field's second-largest cost after staffing, so cutting water handling has a direct effect on operating costs. The company plans to expand OOR across the field in stages without material upfront capital.
Board looks beyond Texas
Buccaneer said the Texas platform now underpins a Board push to find opportunities of materially greater scale, in local and potentially international energy markets. Non-Executive Chairman Dr Stephen Staley has taken a leading role in assessing that opportunity set. He was the founding CEO of Independent Resources plc, Upland Resources Ltd and Fastnet Oil & Gas Ltd, and was a consultant to Cove Energy Ltd around its acquisition of Rovuma Basin acreage offshore Mozambique, which Cove sold to PTTEP for £1.2 billion in 2012 after major gas discoveries.
CEO Paul Welch said the Texas business is "in the strongest operational shape it has been in years."
