Linc Energy is distancing itself from estimates in today’s media that it may be sitting on $20 trillion worth of oil in South Australia’s Arckaringa Basin.

Linc’s shares rocketed more than 30 per cent to an 18-month high of $2.82 today after it told the stock exchange yesterday that two independent consultants estimated there was an ‘‘unrisked prospective resource’’ of up to 223 billion barrels of oil equivalent in three shale formations within its 100 per cent-held Arckaringa exploration permits.

Big but not that big ... Linc Energy chief Peter Bond.

Media outlets including the Adelaide Advertiser appear to have multiplied the resource estimate by the prevailing oil price - above $US95 a barrel - to arrive at the $20 trillion figure.

But Linc chief executive Peter Bond told BusinessDay: ‘‘That’s not our valution. I don’t know who did that but someone’s got a calculator out and come up with that number ... but we wouldn’t put a valuation on it at this stage. It’s too hard.