Last checked at 3 Feb 2009 07:00
3 February 2009
Lansdowne Oil & Gas plc
("Lansdowne" or the "Company")
Completion of updated Competent Persons Report, issue of equity to satisfy deferred consideration, Director Shareholdings and retirement of Director.
Lansdowne Oil & Gas plc (AIM: LOGP) the Dublin-based exploration company announces details of an updated Competent Persons Report (the "CPR") covering all of its Celtic Sea Acreage.
Furthermore, by virtue of the inclusion within the CPR of an independent technical report on the Amergin Exploration Licence (5/08) ("Amergin"), the company is pleased to announce the issue of new ordinary shares in satisfaction of deferred consideration ("Deferred Consideration Shares") relating to its acquisition of Milesian Oil & Gas Limited ("Milesian"), completed in December 2007 and which is triggered by the CPR.
Resource Update
The CPR has been prepared by RPS Energy and will shortly be available on the Company's website www.lansdowneoilandgas.com. The CPR has been prepared following the guidelines laid out in the 2007 Petroleum Resources Management System, published by the SPE/WPC/AAPG/SPEE.
The Company's Cretaceous gas prospects, held in exploration licences (4/07 and 5/07) in the vicinity of the Kinsale Head field, were re-evaluated as part of the CPR exercise. Best case prospective gas resources net attributable to Lansdowne in the three main prospects, Rosscarbery, Midleton and East Kinsale amount to 331.4 bscf. This compares with a figure of 267.5 bscf reported at the time of Lansdowne's listing on AIM in April 2006.
The Cretaceous Barryroe oil discovery, held under Exploration Licensing Option 08/1, was also reviewed as part of this update. Best estimate contingent resources (2C) net attributable to Lansdowne have been estimated at 23.4 MMBbls. This compares with a figure of 23.0 MMBbls reported at the time of Lansdowne's listing on AIM in April 2006.
As noted above, following the acquisition of Milesian, the Company's updated CPR also covers the Amergin prospect for the first time. The new 2D seismic that was acquired and processed shows a major improvement over all previous datasets and mapping has confirmed Amergin as a robust tilted fault block structure with best case potentially recoverable prospective resources net attributable to Lansdowne of 64.4 MMBOE.
Issue of Deferred Consideration Shares
On 17 December 2007 the Company announced the completion of the acquisition of Milesian which included deferred consideration of up to 8,110,099 new ordinary shares in the Company, which would be payable dependent upon the results of an updated Independent Technical Report following completion of a 2D seismic programme over Milesian's Celtic Sea acreage.
The Independent Technical Report included in the CPR, completed by RPS Energy, has been used as the basis for the calculation of Deferred Consideration Shares.
The total deferred consideration payable consists of 2,333,419 ordinary shares to be issued in the event of the provision by an independent technical consultant of an updated Independent Technical Report relating to Milesian's assets, reporting there to be at least 63 MMBOE best case potentially recoverable prospective resources from the area covered by Licensing Option 05/2 (now Licence 5/08); and a further 62,790 ordinary shares in the Company for every additional 1 MMBOE best case potentially recoverable prospective resources from Milesian's assets (over the 63 MMBOE referred to above) reported, up to a maximum of 5,776,680 new ordinary shares in the Company.
As a result of the CPR announced today the Company has made the allocation of 2,333,419 Deferred Consideration Shares for exceeding the 63 MMBOE threshold and a further 62,790 Deferred Consideration Shares for the additional 1 MMBOE above the 63 MMBOE threshold.
Directors' Shareholding
Of the total 2,396,209 Deferred Consideration Shares to be issued, 1,739,276 Deferred Consideration Shares are to be allocated to Emmet Brown, Thomas Anderson and Richard Pollock who were all directors of Milesian before joining the Board of Lansdowne.
Emmet Brown, Business Development Director receives 792,666 new shares taking his holding in the Company to 3,743,768 (10.66 % of the Company's enlarged issued share capital). Thomas Anderson, Non-Executive Director receives 924,893 new shares increasing his holding in the Company to 4,368,283 (12.44% of the Company's issued share capital) and Richard Pollock, Non-Executive Director receives 21,717 new shares taking his interest in the Company to 102,569 (0.29% of the Company's issued share capital).
Following the issue of the deferred consideration, the holding of the Milesian Concert party has increased from 7,890,255 ordinary shares (26.53% of the issued share capital at 17 December 2007) to 10,009,576 ordinary shares (28.5% of the enlarged share capital).
Following the issue of the deferred consideration, the holding of Ramco Hibernia Limited remains 12,728,308 ordinary shares (42.8% of the issued share capital at 17 December 2007 and 36.26% of the enlarged share capital).
Following the issue of the deferred consideration, the holding of LC Capital Master Fund Limited remains 8,394,785 ordinary shares (23.91% of the enlarged share capital). At 17 December 2007 its holding was 5,421,078 ordinary shares (18.23% of the issued share capital).
Accordingly, application will be made for the 2,396,209 Deferred Consideration Shares to be admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange plc ("AIM") and dealings are expected to commence on AIM on 5 February 2009. Following admission of the Deferred Consideration Shares, the Company will have 35,106,987 ordinary shares in issue. Lansdowne does not hold any ordinary shares in Treasury. Therefore, the total number of voting rights in Lansdowne will be 35,106,987.
Retirement of a Director
With the completion of the Milesian acquisition, the integration of the Amergin prospect and the issuing of the deferred shares, Non-Executive Director Richard Pollock has elected to retire from the board with immediate effect.
Steve Boldy, CEO of Lansdowne, commented:
" The re-evaluation of the Cretaceous gas prospects in the vicinity of the Kinsale Head gas field has confirmed these as low to moderate risk opportunities, that assisted by the proximity to infrastructure with spare processing and export capacity generate attractive economics.
We are very pleased with the quality of the new seismic data over Amergin which has allowed mapping of the Jurassic targets with a much higher degree of confidence. Amergin has emerged as a robust prospect with significant resource potential. A number of other Jurassic leads have also been identified which will require further work to mature.
On behalf of the Board I would like to thank Richard Pollock for his considerable contribution in the transition period since the announcement of the Milesian acquisition in December 2007 and we wish him well in the future."
Enquiries:
| Lansdowne Oil & Gas plc | |
| Steve Boldy, Chief Executive | 00 353 1 6373934 |
| Canaccord Adams (Nominated Adviser) | |
| Jeffrey Auld / Henry Fitzgerald-O'Connor | 0207050 6500 |
This resource update has been reviewed and approved by Steve Boldy, Chief Executive of Lansdowne. Steve Boldy is a geology graduate with a Ph.D from Trinity College Dublin and is a member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain. He has 28 years experience in the oil and gas exploration sector and is a qualified person as defined in the guidance note for Mining, Oil & Gas Companies, March 2006 of the London Stock Exchange.
Glossary
| "AAPG" | American Association of Petroleum Geologists |
| "bscf" | billion standard cubic feet |
| "2C" | denotes best estimate scenario of contingent resources
|
| "Cretaceous" | the period of geological time from 142 million years ago to 65 million years ago |
| "Jurassic" | the period of geological time from 205 million years ago to 142 million years ago |
| "MMBbls" | million barrels |
| "MMBOE" | million barrels of oil equivalent(natural gas converted to barrels of oil equivalent using a conversion rate of 6,000scf per boe) |
| "scf" | standard cubic feet |
| "SPE" | Society of Petroleum Engineers |
| "SPEE" | Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers |
| "WPC" | World Petroleum Council |