Director/PDMR Shareholding

RNS Number : 7255H

Block Energy PLC

08 April 2022

 

8 April 2022

Block Energy plc

("Block" or the "Company")

Issue of Options and PDMR Dealing

Block Energy plc, the development and production company focused on Georgia, announces that, today, it issued nil-cost options over a total of 12,836,556 ordinary shares of 0.25p each ("Bonus Options") to executive directors/PDMRs in lieu of cash bonuses for the year ended 31 December 2021, in accordance with the Company's performance-related cash bonus scheme. Paul Haywood, the Company's CEO, offered to take 100 per cent of his bonus award in the form of nil-cost options, and William McAvock, the Company's CFO, offered to take 50 per cent of his bonus award in the form of nil-cost options, in both cases in order to conserve the Company's cash for expanding production as soon as possible, and the non-executive directors agreed to this proposal for the same reason. At the closing price of the ordinary shares on the trading day preceding the date of issue of 1.325 pence per share, the Bonus Options were valued at £170,804.

Also, on 7 April 2022, William McAvock, cancelled 3,125,000 of his LTIP Options with an exercise price of 11p that were granted to him on 21 October 2019.

Additionally, today, under its Long-Term Incentive Plan, the Company issued options over a total of 42 million ordinary shares of 0.25p each ("LTIP Options") to executive directors/PDMRs, employees and consultants. The LTIP Options have an expiry date ten years from the date of grant, and vest by one-third on each of the first, second and third anniversaries of the date of grant, and an exercise price of 1.325p per share, which was the closing price of the ordinary shares on the trading day preceding the date of issue. The LTIP Options awarded to the two executive directors have additional operational performance conditions (to drill one well and perform 50 well workovers) that must be achieved for each of the three annual tranches to vest.

Of the total number of LTIP Options issued, 20 million LTIP Options were issued to directors/PDMRs, as shown in the table below.

PDMR	Position	Number of Options cancelled	Number of Bonus Options granted	Number of LTIP Options granted	Resulting total options held over ordinary shares
Paul Haywood	Chief Executive Officer	-	10,896,226	14,500,000	44,088,355
William McAvock	Chief Financial Officer	3,125,000	1,940,330	4,500,000	14,439,348
Chris Boffey	Chief Legal Officer	-	-	1,000,000	2,395,898

The remaining 22 million options were granted to senior members of staff, twelve based in Georgia and five based in the UK.

The Company has also amended the rules of its Management Incentive Plan to change the number of options that can be issued from 10 per cent of issued ordinary share capital to 10 per cent of fully diluted ordinary share capital and to exclude options granted in lieu of cash for fees, salary or bonus in calculating the limit. This is in order to preserve the original intention of the scheme, to limit conventional share options as used in the LTIP arrangements, when the directors had not anticipated the simultaneous use of nil-cost options as an alternative to shares in lieu of fees or cash compensation.

**ENDS**

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION AS STIPULATED UNDER THE UK VERSION OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION NO 596/2014 WHICH IS PART OF ENGLISH LAW BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018, AS AMENDED.  ON PUBLICATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT VIA A REGULATORY INFORMATION SERVICE, THIS INFORMATION IS CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

For further information please visit http://www.blockenergy.co.uk/ or contact:

Paul Haywood (Chief Executive Officer)	Block Energy plc	Tel: [phone]
Neil Baldwin (Nominated Adviser)	Spark Advisory Partners Limited	Tel: [phone]
Peter Krens (Corporate Broker)	Tennyson Securities	Tel: [phone]
Mark Antelme Philip Dennis (Financial PR Adviser)	Celicourt Communications	Tel: [phone]

Notes to editors

Block Energy plc is an AIM-listed independent oil and gas company focused on production and development in Georgia, applying innovative technology to realise the full potential of previously discovered fields.

Block has a 100% working interest in Georgian onshore licence blocks IX and XI^B. Licence block XI^B is Georgia's most productive block, with 2P reserves of 64 MMboe, comprising 2P oil reserves of 36 MMbbls and 2P gas reserves of 28 MMboe (Source: CPR Bayphase Limited: 1 July 2015)and historical production of over 180 MMbbls of oil from the Middle Eocene, peaking in the mid-1980s at 67,000 bopd.

The Company has a 100% working interest in the West Rustavi onshore oil and gas field with multiple wells that have tested oil and gas from a range of geological horizons. The field has so far produced 50 Mbbls of light sweet crude and has 0.9 MMbbls of gross 2P oil reserves in the Middle Eocene. It also has 38 MMbbls of gross unrisked 2C contingent resources of oil and 608 Bcf of gross unrisked 2C contingent resources of gas in the Middle, Upper and Lower Eocene formations (Source: CPR Gustavson Associates: 1 January 2018).

Block also holds 100% and 90% working interests respectively in the onshore oil-producing Norio and Satskhenisi fields.

The Company offers a clear entry point for investors to gain exposure to Georgia's growing economy and the strong regional demand for oil and gas.

Glossary

1.  bbls: barrels. A barrel is 35 imperial gallons.

2.  Bcf: billion cubic feet.

3.  boe: barrels of oil equivalent.

4.  bopd: barrels of oil per day.

5.  Mbbls: thousand barrels.

6.  MMbbls: million barrels.

7.  MMboe: million barrels of oil equivalent.

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities ("PDMRs") and persons closely associated ("PCA") with them.

1	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Paul Haywood
2	Reason for notification
a)	Position / status	CEO
b)	Initial notification /Amendment	Initial notification
3	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Block Energy plc
b)	LEI	213800E2J8QA1J6KN415
4	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument Identification code	Options to acquire ordinary shares in Block Energy plc ISIN GB00BF3TBT48
b)	Nature of the transaction	1) Grant of share options 2) Grant of share options
c)	Price(s) and volumes(s)	Price(s) Volumes(s) 1) 0p 2) 1.325p 1) 10,896,226 2) 14,500,000
d)	Aggregated information	n/a
e)	Date of the transaction	8 April 2022
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities ("PDMRs") and persons closely associated ("PCA") with them.

1	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	William McAvock
2	Reason for notification
a)	Position / status	CFO
b)	Initial notification /Amendment	Initial notification
3	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Block Energy plc
b)	LEI	213800E2J8QA1J6KN415
4	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of  the financial instrument, type of instrument Identification code	Options to acquire ordinary shares in Block Energy plc ISIN GB00BF3TBT48
b)	Nature of the transaction	1) Cancellation of share options 2) Grant of share options 3) Grant of share options
c)	Price(s) and volumes(s)	Price(s) Volumes(s) 1) 11p 2) 0p 2) 1.325p 1) 3,125,000 2) 1,940,330 3) 4,500,000
d)	Aggregated information	n/a
e)	Date of the transaction	8 April 2022
f)	Place of the transaction	Outside a trading venue

Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities ("PDMRs") and persons closely associated ("PCA") with them.

1	Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated
a)	Name	Chris Boffey
2	Reason for notification
a)	Position / status	Chief Legal Officer
b)	Initial notification /Amendment	Initial notification
3	Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor
a)	Name	Block Energy plc
b)	LEI	213800E2J8QA1J6KN415
4	Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted
a)	Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument Identification code	Options to acquire ordinary shares in Block Energy plc ISIN GB00BF3TBT48
b)	Nature of the transactions	Grant of share options
c)	Price(s) and volumes(s)	Price(s) Volumes(s) 1.325p 1,000,000
d)	Aggregated information	n/a
e)	Date of the transactions	8 April 2022
f)	Place of the transactions	Outside a trading venue

 

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