LONDON (Alliance News) - Range Resources Ltd on Monday reported a narrowed interim loss due to revenue increasing 30%, as it successfully agreed a debt restructuring with LandOcean Energy Services Co Ltd.
For the six months to the end of December 31, the oil & gas company posted a pretax loss of USD5.7 million compared to USD8.5 million a year prior.
Revenue rose to USD7.0 million with approximately 90% of revenues from upstream operations. A year ago revenue was USD5.4 million.
The company's average production, coming in at 583 barrels of oil per day, was 4% lower than the prior year.
Production was "adversely affected" by extreme weather conditions, infrastructure constraints, and three-day strike action by employees in Trinidad, Range explained.
"During the period, we continued with our upstream and oilfield operations in Trinidad which included low-cost production optimization work, infrastructure modernisation and third-party work for our services business," Chair Kerry Gu said.
Furthermore, Range announced a series of measures for a comprehensive restructuring of the payment obligations with LandOcean.
The company agreed to extend its repayment obligations to at least 2022, with no payments or interests due before that date.
It also extended for three years a USD20 million convertible note with repayment due in 2022 and reduced its overall outstanding debt by over 20% via the repayment of USD19.7 million of the outstanding balance through the issuance of new shares.
The completion of this actions is subject to approval by Range shareholders and LandOcean shareholders and to the completion of a proposed new acquisition, identified in a 49% interest in a pre-school education business operating in China.
The acquisition, if completed would constitute a reverse takeover, and for this reason, the company requested its shares to be suspended from trading on AIM. pending publication of an admission document.
"We are delighted to have successfully renegotiated our payment obligations with LandOcean and to have secured extension of repayments until 2022 at the earliest. This was our key objective for 2019 and this is an important step for the company in stabilizing the balance sheet position and positing the business towards growth," Gu said.