Northern Petroleum completes partial Canadian divestment

(ShareCast News) - Northern Petroleum announced on Tuesday that, further to its announcement of 30 November, the divestment of 25% of its assets in Canada to High Power Petroleum has now completed.The AIM-traded company added that the remaining disposals in Italy and Australia, as set out in the circular sent to shareholders on 30 November, are subject to local regulatory approval and should complete in the new year.Following the admission to trading of 124,047,017 new ordinary shares on 19 December, the firm's board said the first tranche subscription had also now completed.The open offer, as described in the circular, remained open for acceptances until 1100 GMT on 9 January.As the board stated in the announcement on 1 December and in the circular, the size of the second tranche subscription is contingent on the size of the open offer.The company said the terms of the subscription agreement with H2P include the right to appoint a non-executive director to the company, and accordingly Campbell Airlie has now been appointed to that role."We are very pleased to have Campbell join us on the board," said Northern Petroleum chairman Jon Murphy."He has extensive experience and will bring a wealth of industry expertise, with a particular focus on petroleum engineering and production optimisation."We believe his skill set will complement the board well and we look forward to working with him on what will be an exciting programme for Northern Petroleum in 2017."