Ascent Resources Regulatory News (AST)

19 Mar 2007 07:04

Ascent Resources PLC19 March 2007 Ascent Resources plc / Epic: AST / Index: AIM / Sector: Oil and Gas Ascent Resources plc ("Ascent" or the "Company") Placing Ascent Resources plc, the oil and gas exploration and production company, israising £3.5 million (approximately £3.3 million net of expenses) through theissue of 25,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.1p each ("Placing Shares") at 14pper share. The Company intends to use the proceeds primarily to cover the additional costsresulting from the recent Anagni-1 oil discovery in the Frosinone ExplorationPermit in Italy's Latina Valley and to increase its interest in the FrosinoneExploration permit by 10% to 80%. Other additional expenditure is planned foraccelerating the development of the PEN-104 gas discovery in Hungary as well aspreliminary engineering design associated with the Company's Tight Gasinitiative in south west Hungary and Slovenia. Ascent's Managing Director Jeremy Eng said, "We have had a high level of successin the development of our portfolio during the last six months having made twodiscoveries from our on-going drilling campaign. The funds raised will, in themost part, be used to advance the Italian oil discovery made in the LatinaValley earlier this year and the Hungarian gas discovery made at the end of lastyear." Ascent has entered into a placing agreement with Cenkos Securities plc, pursuantto which Cenkos Securities plc has, on behalf of Ascent, conditionally placedthe Placing Shares with institutional investors. Application will be made for the Placing Shares to be admitted to trading on AIMand it is expected that admission will become effective and that trading in thePlacing Shares on AIM will commence on March 22nd 2007. The total number of Ordinary Shares in issue immediately following the placingwill be 290,504,891. * * ENDS * * For further information visit www.ascentresources.co.uk or contact: Jeremy Eng Ascent Resources plc Tel: 020 7251 4905Hugo de Salis St Brides Media & Finance Ltd Tel: 020 7242 4477 Notes: Ascent Resources has a portfolio of over 20 oil and gas projects across sixcountries in Europe. The projects are onshore in Italy, Switzerland, Hungary,Spain, Slovenia and offshore Netherlands. Ascent is at present drilling aprogramme of six wells. Two have already been drilled in Hungary, one of whichwas a gas discovery. The Anagni-1 well, first of two Italian wells, has beentemporarily completed for future deepening and testing and the Hontomin-4 wellcurrently being drilled is the first of two wells in Spain. Later in 2007, twomore gas exploration wells are to be drilled in Hungary, high impact gasexploration wells are planned in the Po Valley in Italy, and one well inSwitzerland, subject to permitting and rig availability. Ascent operates Spain's only onshore oilfield where production currentlyaverages over 100 barrels of oil per day. With the stable European gas market, Ascent's portfolio favours gas over oiland, with the exception of the Netherlands, all of its projects are locatedonshore where operating and development costs are substantially lower than theyare offshore. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange