LONDON (Alliance News) - Savannah Petroleum PLC Thursday reported a pretax loss in its first results since listing on AIM in 2014, as it looks to secure a partner for its only project "in the coming months".
The Niger-focused oil and gas company, which does not generate any revenue, reported a USD14.7 million pretax loss in 2014. The company floated on AIM in August, so there are no accounts prior to the listing available.
The loss consisted of USD6.8 million in operating expenses and USD7.9 million in finance costs, leading to a USD0.13 loss per share for the period.
"Savannah Petroleum has made very solid progress in its first nine months as a public company. We are working closely with our hosts within the government of Niger as we look to continue to explore and evaluate R1/R2, located in the proven hydrocarbon fairways of the Agadem Rift Basin where over 1.00 billion barrels have been discovered to date," said Chairman Steve Jenkins.
At the end of December, the company had a cash balance of USD17 million with no debt. When it listed in August it raised a total of USD72 million, of which USD43 million has been spent on the R1/R2 license area.
The company is focused on the R1/R2 licence area in Niger and the company said it expects to commence seismic acquisition and drilling in "the coming months", while on the corporate side it expects to secure a partner for the project.
In a separate statement, the company said it has conducted 3D seismic over 8% of the R1/R2 license area and identified 14 drill ready targets which could hold an estimated total gross mean prospective resources of 215 million barrels of oil. Savannah has also identified an additional 37 exploration leads in the area.
"This update reflects the culmination of over nine months of technical work, with Savannah having had the equivalent of a team of six senior geologists and geophysicists working full time on this project. I look forward with confidence to the next phase of our analysis of the subsurface, as we move towards further seismic acquisition and the commencement of our drilling campaign on R1/R2," said Chief Executive Andrew Knott.
Savannah shares were up 9.3% to 23.50 pence per share on Thursday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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