24 Jul 2009 07:00
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc
('VOG' or 'the Company')
(AIM: VOG)
Completion of Placing, Issue of New Shares and Exercise of Warrants
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc, the AIM quoted oil and gas exploration company with assets in Cameroon and the FSU, is pleased to announce that, following shareholder approval of all resolutions proposed at an Extraordinary General Meeting on 13 July 2009, the Company has completed, conditional on admission, the second tranche of its equity placing of 76,625,000 new ordinary shares through Fox-Davies Capital Limited ("FDC") raising £2.3 million before expenses, further to the announcement dated 17 June 2009. This funding, combined with the initial placing of £3 million announced on the same date, will be used to drill the first well and generate first production at the Company's Logbaba project in Cameroon.
HJ Resources Ltd ("HJR"), a company owned by a discretionary trust of which Kevin Foo and his wife are possible beneficiaries, is participating in the placing by subscribing for 7,291,667 shares. As part of an unrelated commercial transaction HJR has transferred 14.2 million ordinary shares in VOG to a third party and so, in order to maintain its holding in VOG, it will subscribe for a further 7 million new ordinary shares at a price of 3.7 pence per share (a 9 per cent premium to yesterday's closing price). These funds will be used by VOG for repayment of its loans to HJR.
The Company has issued 25,005,696 new ordinary shares to advisers, promissory note holders and 17,775,000 ordinary shares to the Trustee of the Company's Employee Share Ownership Plan. A further 947,667 new ordinary shares have also been issued to FDC following exercise of warrants granted on 8 April 2009.
Application will be made to the London Stock Exchange for these 127,353,363 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. It is expected that admission will become effective and that trading will commence on 30 July 2009. Following the admission, the Company will have 733,208,753 ordinary shares in issue. The new ordinary shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the existing ordinary shares.
The effect of the above on the holdings of the Directors is as follows:-
| Net shares issued | Total Shareholding in VOG following issue | ||
| Kevin Foo | 657,117 | 30,389,003* | 4.1% |
| George Donne | 833,333 | 2,283,140 | 0.3% |
| Philip Rand | 833,333 | 833,333 | 0.1% |
* The shares are held by H J Resources Ltd which is owned by a discretionary trust, of which Mr Foo and his wife are possible beneficiaries
For further information, please contact:
Victoria Oil & Gas Plc - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7921 8820
George Donne / Kevin Foo
Strand Partners Limited - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7409 3494
Simon Raggett / Angela Peace
Fox-Davies Capital - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7936 5220
Daniel Fox-Davies / Oliver Stansfield
Conduit PR - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7429 6607
Jonathan Charles / Ed Portman
Background Information on Victoria Oil & Gas Plc:
Victoria Oil & Gas is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company with projects in Africa and the FSU. The Company's principal assets are the Logbaba gas and condensate project in Cameroon and the West Medvezhye gas field in Siberia, Russia. Logbaba is located in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon. The field was discovered in the 1950s and all four exploration wells flowed gas at rates of up to 62 million cubic feet per day. West Medvezhye is situated in the prolific Yamal-Nenetsk hydrocarbon region in Siberia. An independent reserve audit estimated prospective resources for the field of over 1.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Further information on the Company can be found at: http://www.victoriaoilandgas.com