What became of Aurelian: from AIM-listed explorer to exemption accounts

The London oil and gas company Madnani joined in 2010 still exists. It now files the accounts of a company with almost nothing in it, from an address it moved to in 2020, under directors appointed and terminated in a steady churn.

The record

Established

AURELIAN OIL & GAS LIMITED (01685863) was incorporated on 10 December 1982 and remains active.
Its accounts for the years ended 31 December 2022, 2023 and 2024 were all filed as 'Total exemption full accounts' — the regime available to small companies.
Its confirmation statements for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 were each filed 'with no updates'.
The registered office was changed on 14 October 2020 from 36 The Crescent, Bricket Wood, St Albans, to 27/28 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DH.
One charge is registered against the company.
Joel David Price, appointed a director of Aurelian on 21 July 2020 and still in office, also holds directorships of SAN LEON ENERGY (UK) LIMITED (08429495), SAN LEON HOLDINGS LIMITED (12722890), SAN LEON ELI LIMITED (12730851), SAN LEON OZA LIMITED (12713718) and AOG FINANCE LIMITED (05929234).
Joel David Price, appointed a director of Aurelian on 21 July 2020 and still in office, also holds directorships of SAN LEON ENERGY (UK) LIMITED (08429495), SAN LEON HOLDINGS LIMITED (12722890), SAN LEON ELI LIMITED (12730851), SAN LEON OZA LIMITED (12713718) and AOG FINANCE LIMITED (05929234).
Directors since the 2013 takeover have turned over steadily: Raymond King terminated 5 August 2020; Joel Price appointed 21 July 2020; Lisa Mitchell terminated 29 October 2021; Julian Tedder appointed 15 November 2022 and terminated 19 July 2024.
In the period around Madnani's appointment the company filed at least ten SH01 statements of capital following share allotments, between February 2010 and February 2011.

Unresolved

What the company holds today. Exemption accounts disclose very little, and this archive has not obtained the accounts themselves.

Companies rarely die in Britain. They shrink, and the register records the shrinking in a language of form numbers.

Then

In 2010, when Madnani joined it, Aurelian Oil & Gas was the UK arm of an AIM-listed explorer with acreage in Poland and a shareholder register containing Kulczyk Investments, Toscafund, Lord Sainsbury and Cheyne Capital. Its filings from that period are the filings of a company raising and deploying money: a run of at least ten SH01 statements of capital following share allotments between February 2010 and February 2011, resolutions on the allotment of securities, group accounts, a board being rebuilt.

On 25 January 2013 San Leon Energy bought the group by scheme of arrangement, ten directors resigned, and three arrived.

Now

The company is still on the register. Here is what it files.

Accounts for 2022, 2023 and 2024, each lodged as “Total exemption full accounts” — the reduced regime for small companies. Confirmation statements for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, each “with no updates”. One registered charge.

In October 2020 the registered office moved from 36 The Crescent, Bricket Wood, St Albans — a suburban address — to 27/28 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DH.

The directors have kept turning over without the company appearing to do anything: Raymond King out in August 2020, Joel Price in the month before, Lisa Mitchell out in October 2021, Julian Tedder in during November 2022 and out in July 2024.

And the register closes the loop on where it ended up. Joel Price, appointed in July 2020 and still in office, also directs San Leon Energy (UK) Limited, San Leon Holdings Limited, San Leon ELI Limited, San Leon OZA Limited and AOG Finance Limited. Aurelian Oil & Gas Limited is today a dormant-looking entity inside the group that bought it in 2013.

What this is worth

Nothing about it reflects on Madnani. He left eleven years before the current filings and had no part in what the company became.

It is on the file for the reader who checks a CV line. “Director, Aurelian Oil & Gas Limited” reads today as a directorship of a company that files exemption accounts and reports no updates. In 2010 to 2013 it was something quite different — an AIM-backed explorer being recapitalised and then sold.

The register carries both, eleven years apart, under one company number. Knowing which one a claim refers to is the whole job.