27 Sep 2011 07:00
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN, INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, CANADA, SOUTH AFRICA OR AUSTRALIA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A BREACH OF THE RELEVANT SECURITIES LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION.
27 September 2011
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc('VOG' or 'the Company')(AIM: VOG)
Equity Placing of £9.5 Million Oversubscribed
Highlights:
·; Fundraising of £9.5 million successfully placed
·; First production from 95% owned Logbaba due to commence before year end
·; Fully funded through to positive cash-flows
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc, is pleased to announce it has completed, conditional on admission, an equity placing of 292,307,687 new ordinary shares ("Placing Shares") at a price of 3.25 pence per share (the "Placing") raising £9.5 million before expenses through Fox-Davies Capital Limited.
The funds raised through the Placing will be utilised by the Company, inter alia, to complete the development of the Logbaba gas and gas condensate project in Cameroon following the increase in the Company's working interest in the project to 95%. It will also fund the final payment to acquire a one third interest in Cameroon Holdings Limited, announced in August 2011. These transactions have considerably enhanced the project economics to the Company, increasing net proved and probable gas reserves by approximately 80 billion cubic feet and the post tax NPV by $270m to $676m.
Kevin Foo, Chairman of Victoria Oil & Gas, said today, "This placing demonstrates continued investor confidence in VOG in very challenging markets. It was completed to finance the increased working interest in Logbaba and pay for the remainder of the acquisition costs in Cameroon Holdings both of which are considerably accretive to shareholders. The funds will enable the Company to achieve first gas production at Logbaba, which remains on schedule for Q4 2011."
The Company has also issued a further 28,439,087 new ordinary shares to key suppliers and advisors at a price of 3.25 pence per share in settlement of outstanding costs and fees, which is an additional vote of confidence in the company.
Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for admission of 320,746,774 new ordinary shares to trading on AIM ("Admission"). It is expected that Admission will become effective and that trading will commence on 30 September 2011.
Following Admission, the Company will have 2,505,016,237 ordinary shares in issue. The new ordinary shares will rankpari passu in all respects with the existing ordinary shares.
For further information, please contact:
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7921 8820
Kevin Foo / Martin Devine
Strand Hanson Limited - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7409 3494
Simon Raggett / Angela Peace
Fox-Davies Capital - Tel: +44 (0) 203 463 5010
Daniel Fox-Davies/ Richard Hail
Tavistock Communications - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7920 3150
Ed Portman/ Paul Youens
Background Information on Victoria Oil & Gas Plc:
Victoria Oil & Gas is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company with projects in Africa and the FSU. The Company's principal assets are the 95% owned Logbaba gas and gas condensate project in Cameroon and the 100% owned West Medvezhye project in Siberia, Russia. Logbaba is located in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon. The field was discovered in the 1950s and all four exploration wells encountered gas. The Company has since drilled two successful development wells in 2009/10. First gas sales are expected in Q4 2011.
West Medvezhye is situated in the prolific Yamal-Nenetsk hydrocarbon region in Siberia. The Company has a discovery well, 103, with C1 and C2 reserves, independently assessed under the Russian classification convention of 14.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, ('boe') approved by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources. The Company recently announced an estimated 300 mmboe increase in prospective resources to approximately 1.4 billion boe further to a seismic reprocessing and geological modelling study carried out by an independent Russian geoscience consulting institute, Mineral LLC ('Mineral'), incorporating the recent passive seismic survey and gas tomography results with conventional 2D seismic. Currently, integrated appraisal and development studies are in progress to commercialise the Well-103 discovery and prospective resources.