PTR.L Regulatory News (PTR)

27 Sep 2006 07:00

Petroneft Resources Plc27 September 2006 Petroneft Resources Plc ("Petroneft" or "the Company") Admission to trading on AIM and IEX US$15.5 million Placing Petroneft Resources Plc, an international oil and gas exploration and productioncompany developing hydrocarbon acreage in Tomsk Oblast, Western Siberia, ispleased to announce its admission to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchangeand the IEX market of the Irish Stock Exchange. The Company has raised grossproceeds of €12.2 million (US$15.5 million) by placing 41,480,174 new ordinaryshares at a placing price of €0.295 (£19.8p) per ordinary share, indicating amarket capitalisation for the Company of approximately €52.1 million (£35million). Davy is acting as nominated adviser, IEX adviser and broker toPetroneft. Petroneft Resources plc was established for the purpose of acquiring anddeveloping hydrocarbon acreage in Western Siberia. The Group's principal assetis a 100 per cent interest in Licence 61, an exploration and production licencelocated in the Tomsk Oblast of Western Siberia. The Licence was acquired by theGroup in 2005 and covers a geographical area of 4,991 km2 in the eastern sectionof the prolific West Siberian Oil & Gas Basin in Russia. The Licence is validuntil 2030 and may be extended based on an approved development plan. Licence 61 is a Core Area which contains two proven oil fields, referred to asLineynoye and Tungolskoye and, in addition, has upside reserve potentialcontained in 25 additional prospects and potential prospects identified byseismic surveys. The Group's work programmes and activities are focused on thedevelopment of this core area through the determination of its full upsidereserve potential and the timely monetisation of its existing Proved andProbable reserves, currently estimated at 33.5 million barrels of oil. Ryder Scott Petroleum Consultants estimates a total reservs level of(P1+P2+P3+P4) of 424m barrels of oil in its competent persons report:illustrating the considerable potential of Licence 61. The details of thesereserve figures are as follows: Lineynoye and Tungolskoye Oil Fields; Proved (P1) + Probable (P2) = 33.5 million barrels Possible (P3) = 37.1 million barrels Total (P1+P2+P3) = 70.6 million barrels Twenty Prospects and Five Potential Prospects (Leads); Possible (P3) = 253 million barrels Exploration Resources (P4) = 100 million barrels The Group's senior management team has substantial experience and knowledge ofacquiring, exploring and developing hydrocarbon assets and in particular ofacquisition, exploration, development, production and marketing requirements inRussia. With a geographical focus principally on Russia, the Group intends to continueto identify and evaluate exploration and production acquisition and developmentopportunities, by taking advantage of the Directors' and senior management'sindustry relationships, experience and expertise developed in Russia over thelast 16 years, in order to develop and diversify the Group's asset portfolio. Details of placing Placing Price €0.295 (£19.8p)Number of New Ordinary Shares 41,480,174Directors' Participation in the Placing 2,341,623Number of Ordinary Shares in issue before Admission 135,145,084Number of Ordinary Shares in issue following the Placing 176,625,258and AdmissionNumber of Options in issue on Admission 6,76 millionNumber of Warrants in issue on Admission 2.67 millionNumber of Ordinary Shares on a fully diluted basis 186.05 millionfollowing the PlacingPlacing Shares as a percentage of the Enlarged Share 23.5%CapitalDirectors % of Enlarged Share Capital subject to 12 32%month lock inOther shareholders' % of Enlarged Share Capital subject 9%to 6 month lock inOther Shareholder's % of Enlarged Share Capital subject 13%to orderly market arrangementEstimated cash proceeds of the Placing receivable by the €11.2 millionCompany (net of expenses)Market capitalisation of the Company at Admission at the €52.1 million (£35 million)Placing PriceAIM/IEX symbol PTR / P8ETISIN for the Ordinary Shares IE00B0Q82B24 Dennis Francis, Chief Executive Officer of Petroneft, commented, "We are delighted to have received such a positive backing from internationalcapital markets for our oversubscribed IPO. These funds will be used to executea 3 well operational programme designed to prove up our reserves base and takethe first step towards production. We look forward to updating the market on ourprogress. Tomsk Oblast is a world class petroleum province, with high quality staff andinfrastructure in place on the ground. We are confident that our uniquecombination of experienced international management, top quality localoperational staff and a supportive shareholder register gives us everyconfidence for the future" Enquiries: Petroneft Dennis Francis, CEO Des Burke, Director +353 87 0506502 Davy +353 1 679 6363 John Frain Brian Garrahy College Hill +44 207 457 2020 Nick Elwes Paddy Blewer Further Information Further information on the Company and the securities subject to Admission arecontained in an admission document dated 21 February 2006 (the 'AdmissionDocument'). Terms defined in the Admission Document have the same meaning inthis announcement. Copies of the Admission Document are available to thepublic, free of charge, at the offices of Davy, Davy House, 49 Dawson Street,Dublin 2, Ireland and the offices of White & Case, 5 Old Broad Street, London,EC2N 1DW, United Kingdom from the date of this document until at least one monthafter Admission. Biographies of key personnel G. David Golder (aged 58) Non-Executive Chairman Mr Golder has over 36 years' experience in the petroleum industry and mostrecently was Senior Vice President of Marathon Oil Company ("Marathon") untilhis retirement in 2003. From June 1996 to 1999, Mr Golder was seconded fromMarathon to Sakhalin Energy Investment Company where he was Executive VicePresident - Upstream. Located in Moscow, he managed all upstream activitieswhich focused on the oil development and company infrastructure aspects of theSakhalin II Project onshore and offshore Sakhalin Island. In addition, hemanaged the planning and implementation of the US$650 million development of thePiltun-Astokhskoye oil field and associated infrastructure. Mr Golder wasCo-Chairman of the Joint Supervisory Board which oversaw the preparation andnegotiation of the Sakhalin II Production Sharing Agreement. Mr Golder iscurrently President of David Golder Consulting, LLC and a member of the Societyof Petroleum Engineers. He has a BSc degree in Petroleum & Natural GasEngineering from Pennsylvania State University and has completed the Program forManagement Development at Harvard University. Dennis Francis, (aged 57) Chief Executive Officer Mr Francis has over 35 years' experience in the petroleum industry and was withMarathon Oil Company for 30 years. He started work with Marathon as a geologist/geophysicist and held various international positions. In 1990, Mr Francisbecame USSR/FSU task force manager responsible for putting together a specialtask force to develop new opportunities for Marathon in Russia. Marathon and itspartners ultimately won the first Russian competitive tender, which was todevelop the Sakhalin II Project offshore Sakhalin Island. Mr Francis managed theprogression of this project within Marathon. He represented Marathon asshareholder and was a director on the board of Sakhalin Energy InvestmentCompany during the Phase I Project Development. He was also a member of thejoint supervisory board with oversight responsibility for the Sakhalin IIProduction Sharing Agreement. He was a recipient of the Governor of SakhalinAward for his efforts associated with the Sakhalin II Project and also managedMarathon's acquisition of the Khanty Mansiysk Oil Company in 2003. Mr Francis isa member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Society ofExploration Geophysicists. He has a BSc degree in geophysical engineering and aMSc degree in geology both from the Colorado School of Mines. He has alsocompleted the Program for Management Development at Harvard University. Dr David Sanders, (aged 57) Vice President and General Legal Counsel Dr Sanders is an attorney of law and has over 30 years experience in thepetroleum industry, including 15 years of doing business in Russia. In 1988,Dr. Sanders joined Marathon Oil Company where he analysed and reviewed jointventure agreements for worldwide production until his assignment in 1991 to thenegotiating team for the Sakhalin II Project in Russia. In 1994, he was secondedfor one year as an attorney to Sakhalin Energy Investment Company in Moscow. Hethen provided commercial guidelines and transactional analysis of numerousRussian projects to Marathon's CIS Joint Ventures Group and later became thelead negotiator for Russian projects in Marathon's BusinessDevelopment-Commercial & Negotiations Group. Dr Sanders has a degree inelectronics from Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, a liberal arts degreefrom the University of Houston and a doctorate of jurisprudence from South TexasCollege of Law. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and of the American BarAssociation. Desmond Burke, (aged 59) Director of Planning and Investor Relations Mr Burke has over 30 years of experience as an exploration geologist and as anexecutive of publicly quoted companies in Ireland, Canada and Australia. From1983 to 1993, he was managing director of Burmin Exploration and Development plc("Burmin"), a company that was admitted to trading on the Exploration SecuritiesMarket ('ESM') of the Irish Stock Exchange in 1987. During that period Mr Burkewas also president of Aranlee Resources Ltd, Burmin's Canadian subsidiary,listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, and managing director of Burmin'sAustralian subsidiary, Ashling Resources NL. Following the merger of Burmin withSipa Resources NL, an Australian company, in 1994, Mr Burke became a director ofSipa. From 1995 to 2000, Mr Burke was managing director of Ormonde Mining plc,which was admitted to trading on the ESM in 1996 and on the Vancouver StockExchange in 1998. Mr Burke graduated from University College Dublin with a BScin geology, botany and zoology and an MSc in mineral exploration from theUniversity of London Imperial College. Thomas Hickey, (aged 38) Non-Executive Director Mr Hickey is a chartered accountant and has been Chief Financial Officer and adirector of Tullow Oil plc since 2000. Prior to joining Tullow Oil plc he was anAssociate Director of ABN AMRO Corporate Finance (Ireland) Limited, which hejoined in 1995. In this role, he advised public and private companies in a widerange of industry sectors in the areas of fund raising, stock exchangerequirements, mergers and acquisitions, flotations and related transactions. Mr.Hickey has a degree in Commerce from the University College Dublin and a Fellowof the Irish Institute of Chartered Accountants. Vakha A. Sobraliev, (aged 52) Non-Executive Director Mr Sobraliev has over 30 years experience operating and managing energy servicecompanies and state operating units exploring for and exploiting oil resourcesin the Western Siberian Oil and Gas Basin. Mr Sobraliev is currently ashareholder and General Director of Tomskburneftegaz, LLC an oil and gas welldrilling and services company operating in Western Siberia. This company ownsover 15 exploration and production drilling rigs and associated supportequipment and mechanical repair facilities. From 1975 to 2000, Mr Sobralievworked for Tomskneft and Strezhevoy Drilling Boards in various drilling andeconomic capacities including chief engineer and chief accountant. He hasdegrees in mining engineering and economics from Tomsk Polytechnic Institute andthe Tomsk State University respectively. Mr Sobraliev is a resident of Tomsk,Russia. Senior Management Alexey Balyasnikov (aged 61) General Director of Stimul-T Mr Balyasnikov has over 32 years of experience in the Russian oil and gasindustry. He worked for Marathon in various capacities, including as head ofMarathon's representative office in Moscow, from 1990 to 2004. Most recently hehas worked for Petroneft LLC on numerous projects including under contract toFoster Wheeler Energy LTD as Russian Project Manager of a large due diligenceproject for TNK-BP in Western Siberia. Prior to joining Marathon, Mr Balyasnikovwas a senior geophysical researcher for the Moscow Research Institute. MrBalyasnikov has a degree in geophysics from St. Petersburg University. He is anative Russian speaker who is fluent in English. Alexander Frenovsky (aged 58) Executive Director of Stimul-T Mr Frenovsky, a former general director and chief engineer of JSCTomskneftegazgeologia, the former Russian state enterprise that discovered anddelineated the oil and gas fields in the Tomsk Region. Mr Frenovsky has over 34years' experience in the oil industry and has received a state medal "ForDevelopment of the Subsurface and Oil and Gas Complex of West Siberia" and the "Merited Worker of Geological Exploration" badge of honour. He participated inthe discovery of fields in the Tomsk Region and took part in the development of15 of the oil fields. Mr Frenovsky graduated in 1971 from the Oil University inUfa, Russia, with a specialisation in the "drilling of oil and gas wells". Dr Nikolay Karapuzov (aged 61) Chief Geologist and Geophysicist of Stimul-T Dr Karapuzov was chief geophysicist/chief geologist of JSCTomskneftegazgeologia, where he worked for 35 years and directly participated inthe discovery of 17 oil fields in the area. Dr Karapuzov has been awarded thetitle "Honourable Geologist of Russia" by the Russian government for hiscontribution to the development of the subsurface in Tomsk Region. Dr Karapuzovgraduated from Voronezh State University in 1970 with specialisation in "geophysical methods of prospecting and exploration of hydrocarbons". This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange