Valeura Energy gets all approvals to sell shallow gas business

(Sharecast News) - Turkey-focussed upstream oil and gas company Valeura Energy announced on Friday that all Turkish government consents required to close its proposed sale of its shallow conventional gas business had now been granted.
The London-listed firm said it would now proceed to close the transaction with the buyer, TBNG, which was expected to occur within the coming weeks.

"I am pleased to announce that all required consents have been granted for us to proceed to closing the sale of our conventional gas business and look forward to strengthening our balance sheet both with immediate sale proceeds and with the royalty payments we will receive thereafter," said president and chief executive officer Sean Guest.

"We remain committed to Turkey, and our longer-term plans to further appraise our 20 trillion cubic feet equivalent unrisked mean prospective resource deep tight gas play remain intact.

"In the meantime, closing this sale will solidify our increased cash position which will facilitate Valeura pressing forward with our inorganic growth strategy."

On closing, Valeura will receive cash of $15.5m, subject to normal closing adjustments based on the economic effective date of 1 July 2020.

After that, Valeura said it would be entitled to royalty payments over a five-year period, tied to local gas prices, and ranging from a minimum of $1m to a cap of $2.5m.

At closing, the sale was expected to boost Valeura's corporate cash balance to about $44m.

At 1240 BST, shares in Valeura Energy were up 4.91% at 30.42p.