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Replies to post #41985 on Empire Energy Corporation Intl. (fka EEGC)
Hobart church leader Lucas Jacometti’s oil vision for Central Highlands
January 23, 2016 8:00am - A PROMINENT Hobart church leader has emerged as a driving force behind a renewed bid to turn Tasmania’s Central Highlands into an oil reserve the equivalent of a “rich Arab state”.
Lucas Jacometti, founder and Pastor of the C3 Church in South Hobart, has been lobbying state and federal MPs, government departments and Tasmania’s Co-ordinator General John Perry to get oil exploration back on the state’s agenda.
It seems to have worked, with exploration licences recently being opened up for expressions of interest.
But Mr Jacometti’s links with would-be oil baron Malcolm Bendall, who last decade used renowned sportsmen David Boon and David Foster to spruik his own failed oil ventures, has opened old wounds for those left out of pocket in the past.
A Sunday Tasmanian investigation has revealed a trail from the Tasmanian Central Highlands to Ireland and America linking Bendall and Jacometti.
Mr Bendall was inspired to search from oil after a “vision from God” that prompted a raft of mum and dad investors to enter into the resources market.
Mr Jacometti and his wife have claimed visions from God prompted them to establish the C3 Church in Tasmania.
Mr Bendall, who in 2001 said Tasmania was sitting on $150 billion worth of oil reserves that would make the state look like an equilviant to a “rich Arab state” is linked to the same Irish company Mr Jacometti has been spruiking to local politicians.
The Sunday Tasmanian has spoken to a 99-year-old Hobart man who claims he has lost $280,000 in savings after investing in Mr Bendall’s vision.
And the community of Bronte Park, in the state’s Highlands Lakes district, is concerned at the fallout from the stalled oil exploration development.
Mr Jacometti’s pub at Bronte Park, purchased with a hope it would be a hub for oil workers, is on the market for $750,000.
Locals speculate the pub sale is a sign Mr Jacometti’s oil mining dream has turned sour and he is trying to cut his losses.
ASIC documents show Mr Jacometti is the director of a company called Tasmanian Oil and Gas Australia Pty Ltd of which Mr Bendall’s company, Empire Energy, is a shareholder.
The links prompted hopes from former sailor Don Garnham that Mr Jacometti might be able to shine some light on where the $280,000 of his life savings had gone.
When the Sunday Tasmanian tracked Mr Jacomettii down at Bronte Park last week he urged us to contact Empire Energy about Mr Garnham’s $280,000 worth of shares.
Empire Energy’s headquarters are listed online as being in Murray St, Hobart, but the building is vacant.
A representative from the company refused to answered questions after putting off interviews for months.
In January 2009 Mr Bendall told the Sunday Tasmanian he owned 15 per cent of Nasdaq-listed Empire Energy — the US-based parent company of Great South Land.
He said of Empire’s 1559 shareholders, 231 were Tasmanian, but the former Taroona High School student said the local shareholders owned about 70 per cent of the company’s shares.
“This company is based in America, but its owners are Tasmanian,’’ he said at the time.
“I consider it to be a Tasmanian company.’’
Attempts to contact Mr Bendall, who is rumoured to be everywhere from enjoying a luxury lifestyle in Monaco to working on a chicken farm in Thailand, have been unsuccessful.
Mr Jacometti registered as a lobbyist last year to spruik a company called Ardilaun.
He is listed as a director to Ardilaun Energy Australia before it changed its name to Tasmanian Oil and Gas Australia Pty Ltd.
When the Sunday Tasmanian attempted to contact the Ardilaun headquarters in Ireland a phone message said the “the number you have called is not in service”.
The company has not responded to emails.
Mr Bendall was spruiking the virtues of oil and gas studies — commissioned by Ardilaun Energy — at the largest industry gathering in the country in Mebourne in May.
The Sunday Tasmanian emailed Mr Bendall using an address he advertised at last year’s Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association Conference in Melbourne.
He has not responded.
A Government spokesman told the Sunday Tasmanian last year licences formerly granted to Great Southern Land Minerals and Empire Energy no longer exist and cannot be reinstated or rejuvenated in any way.
However, the area formerly held by GSLM has been released under an Exploration Release Area in and is open for any interested parties to apply.
“MRT will not know how many applications have been received for several days and its policy is not to divulge details of individual applicants until the assessment process has been finalised,” a spokesman for Minerals Resources Tasmania said yesterday:
A spokeswoman for Mr Perry said “further to your inquiry, I can confirm that the Office of Co-ordinator-General did meet with Ardilaun Energy and, as is usual process, we advised them of the relevant processes to follow in regard to their inquiry”.
“The Office of the Co-ordinator-General has had no other formal approaches with regard to oil exploration in Tasmania,” she said.
AI
