Mining services company AJ Lucas holds 55pc stake in UK's huge gas discovery

Suspended Australian mining services company AJ Lucas has achieved a startling accidentavibratory screen manufacturer in europel double: it has a 55 per cent interest in the biggest onshore gas discovery in Britain in decades, and it is suspended from trading for financial reasons.

In May, Lucas had to ask the ASX to suspend its shares at $1.35 pending a recapitalisation that will not be complete until November, shareholder votes permitting. Lucas has two main businesses: oil and gas drilling services in Australia, which is where the financial problems occurred, and shale gas exploration in Europe. The company has been filing low-key reports to the ASX about exploration by 41 per cent-owned Cuadrilla Resources in the Bowland Basin in Lancashire, northern England, but because its shares cannot be traded at present the reports have attracted almost no attention. Lucas owns a direct 25 per cent interest in the Bowland project, which so far has drilled three wells just east of Blackpool. One of these, Preese Hall 1, encountered a gas-bearing shale zone about...