Oil & Gas Corporate News
Gulf Keystone (BUY, £2.00) (GKP, 143.5p, ? (0.0%)) announced it has successfully raised gross proceeds of GBP109,239,200 through an oversubscribed placing of 78 028,000 new Common Shares of US$ 0.01 each in the Company at a placing price of 140p per share in order to accelerate the Company's active drilling programme across its four blocks in Kurdistan, the net proceeds will primarily be applied towards contracting a third Gulf Keystone operated deep drilling rig, in addition to the Weatherford 842 and AOS Discoverer-1 rigs and ensuring three rigs are contracted under Gulf Keystone operatorship until the Shaikan Field is fully appraised, now expected by the end of H1 2012. The Shaikan- 5, Shaikan-6 and Shaikan-7 wells will now be added to the drilling programme in addition to the drilling of previously delayed Shaikan-2 and Shaikan-4 wells. The funds will also be affected to additional testing and production facilities in anticipation of success from current drilling of Sheikh Adi-1 and/or one or more of the Shaikan appraisal wells as well as Gulf Keystone's share of the first exploration well on the Ber Bahr block, and a further exploration well on Akri-Bijeel (Bekhme-1). It is intended that further rigs will be contracted by the respective Ber Bahr and Akri-Bijeel operators for future wells on these production sharing contracts. This additional funding, along with anticipated income from test production, will significantly strengthen the Company's financial position and will allow flexibility in the work programme. As such, the Company will have the opportunity to take advantage of any appropriate opportunities to further add value to its working interest position in Kurdistan. The Placing Shares will represent 11.54% of the enlarged issued share capital of the Company. The total number of common shares in issue following completion of the placing, and the total number of voting rights, will be 754,243,161.
Comment: This is a very decisive and opportunistic move by the Company and is fully in-line with its strategy of proving up as much as possible of the potential resources in order to maximise value. The drilling programme will provide a sustained news flow over the next few months.
President Petroleum (LON:PPC) (PPC, 57.75p, ? (1.28%)) announced that the drilling rig contracted to drill the Company's Kafoury 3 exploration well in Louisiana, will arrive on location by 22 October 2010,…
