Pancontinental to raise $15 mln for Africa exploration
Australia's Pancontinental Oil and Gas has said it is planning to raise up to $15 million through a cash call to fund its exploration activities in Kenya and Namibia and boost its working capital.
The company said it would float up to 200 million shares in the placement at an issue price of 7.5 cents per share.
"The strength of interest in the placement will ensure Pancontinental is well funded for exploration activities in its African licences in what we believe will be a transformational year as we look forward to, amongst other activities, drilling on the giant Mbawa prospect," CEO Barry Rushworth said in a statement.
Pancontinental said the cash call would be completed in two tranches with up to 99.1 million shares being issued in the first phase and the balance of up to 1000.9 million shares issued in a second batch, subject to shareholder approval.
With partners, Pancontinental holds exploration licences for four blocks off Lamu, along the south of Kenya's coast.
It has commenced seismic surveys on a set of blocks - L10A and L10B - off the east African country's coastline with its partners and targets to complete the exercise by mid-2012.
The Australian firm's joint partners in those blocks include BG Group Plc Premier Oil Investment and Cove Energy Plc
Kenya has no proven oil reserves, but interest in the hydrocarbon potential of the east African region has shot up in recent years after gas discoveries in Tanzania and Mozambique and billions of barrels of oil in Uganda.
The Australian firm's joint partners in L8 include Apache Corporation, Origin Energy Limited and Tullow Kenya B.V.
Pancontinental plans to begin drilling on block L6 in 2012 and said it was seeking a rig to sink wells on the Mbawa prospect on block L8 off Kenya's coast mid next year which was recently farmed-in to Tullow Kenya B.V, a wholly owned subsidiary of Britain's Tullow Oil
Offshore Namibia, Pancontinental holds the 17,000 square kilometre licence EL 0037 where it has an 85 percent interest. It is the operator of this licence.
The offshore East African margin, including Kenya, has become an international hot spot for oil and gas exploration.
This article was originally posted on Africa Oil & Mining Network
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