Bulgarian private gas company Overgas has been mulling floating its shares on a European stock exchange, Overgas chief financial officer Angel Ivanov told reporters after a general shareholders' meeting, as quoted by Dnevnik daily on March 7.

According to Ivanov, the company needed fresh capital and would choose between a bond issue and a share offering to raise it. For now, the company was looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the two options and waited for better market conditions, he added.

Overgas would prefer a large European bourse to the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) because it planned a big share issue and only markets with enough financial resources would meet that requirement. Overgas could consider listing on BSE if the local bourse struck a deal with a bigger foreign peer, Ivanov said.

Last month, the company cleared its 20 million leva bond issue, paying the principal with its own operational funds, which have grown substantially due to the fast-track development of the company, Ivanov said.

Last year, company revenues rose by 57.8 per cent on the year to 677 million leva, although pre-tax profit dropped 6.11 per cent to 22.5 million leva because the company launched several new projects.

Overgas will continue its busy investment streak in 2008 as well. Construction of gas mains alone will cost 40.3 million leva, with an additional 9.7 million leva assigned for exploration and extraction of crude oil and gas off Provadia and Shabla, on Bulgaria's Black Sea shelf. Overgas also plans to open eight methane stations in Bulgaria's biggest cities.