9 May 2016
Hurricane Energy plc
("Hurricane" or the "Company")
Result of General Meeting
Completion of £52.1m Placing and Subscription
and Appointment of Alternate Directors
Hurricane Energy plc, the UK-based oil and gas company focused on hydrocarbon resources in naturally fractured basement reservoirs, is pleased to announce that at the general meeting of the Company, held earlier today, all resolutions proposed (the "Resolutions") were duly passed.
The Company announced on 18 April 2016 that it had conditionally raised approximately £52.1 million (before expenses) through a proposed issue of 347,245,265 New Ordinary Shares at a price of 15 pence per share. Kerogen Investments No. 18 Limited, an entity within the fund managed by Kerogen Capital, conditionally subscribed for 293,911,931 of these New Ordinary Shares to raise gross proceeds of approximately £44.1 million (the "Kerogen Subscription"), whilst the remainder of the New Ordinary Shares were conditionally placed with two other institutional investors, Crystal Amber and Marlborough Fund Nominees, to raise gross proceeds of £8.0 million (the "Placing").
Following the passing of the Resolutions, the Kerogen Subscription and the Placing (together the "Fundraising") will now proceed to completion. Further details of, inter alia, the background to and reasons for the Fundraising are set out in the circular which was posted to shareholders in connection with the Resolutions, which is available on the Company's website at www.hurricaneenergy.com.
Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the New Ordinary Shares to be issued pursuant to the Fundraising to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission"), with Admission expected to become effective at 8.00 a.m. on 10 May 2016. The New Ordinary Shares have been duly allotted conditional upon Admission. Following Admission, Hurricane's total issued and voting share capital will comprise 981,374,774 Ordinary Shares. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculation to determine whether a notification of interest, or change in interest, in securities of the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules is required.
Board Appointments
The Company is pleased to confirm that, following the passing of the Resolutions, Roy Kelly, Managing Director and Head of Technical of Kerogen Capital, has been appointed as a Non-executive Director of the Company with effect from Admission, expected on 10 May 2016.
In accordance with the terms of the Kerogen Subscription, Roy Kelly has notified the Company of his intention to appoint Jason Cheng or, in his absence, Leonard Tao as his alternate director on the Board of Hurricane. Accordingly, Mr Cheng and Mr Tao will be appointed with effect from Admission, expected on 10 May 2016.
Jason Cheng is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Kerogen Capital. He was previously the Managing Partner of Ancora Capital and, prior to this, he was a Managing Director of Jade International Capital Partners Limited in Beijing where he was involved in Sino-foreign investments and advisory assignments. He previously worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan in the Energy and Natural Resources Group and, prior to this, at Schroders in the energy and Asian M&A teams. Mr Cheng is regulated by the FCA in the UK and the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong.
Leonard Tao is a Managing Director of Kerogen Capital, having joined the firm in 2011. Prior to this he spent around 9 years in the Energy and Natural Resources Group at J.P. Morgan, in both Australia and Hong Kong, where he managed a wide range of M&A and capital markets transactions in the natural resources sector across numerous geographies, including Asia, Central Asia, Latin America and Africa. Mr Tao is regulated by the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong.
Dr Robert Trice, Chief Executive, commented:
"We are delighted to report the conclusion of our Fundraising. It is a significant step for Hurricane, enabling us to independently advance the development of one of the UK's largest yet to be developed fields, taking advantage of lower oilfield service costs, while controlling 100% of the asset.
The net proceeds of the Fundraising will fund the drilling of two wells on Lancaster in 2016 and we look forward to focusing our efforts on achieving further drilling success as we progress towards first oil."
Save for the information disclosed below, there are no further disclosures to be made in accordance with Schedule Two paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies in respect of the appointments of Mr Cheng and Mr Tao.
Full name: |
Mr Jason Aun Minn Cheng |
Mr Kar Yui Leonard Tao |
|
|
|
Age: |
44 |
35 |
|
|
|
Current Directorships:
(*Alternate Director) |
Ancora Investments HK Limited |
Kerogen Investments No. 18 Limited |
Blue Resources Limited |
Kerogen II Investments No. 18 Holding Limited |
|
Buried Hill Energy (Cyprus) Public Company Limited |
Kerogen Investments No. 6 (Singapore) Pte Ltd |
|
Kerogen Capital Limited (BVI) |
Kerogen Investments No. 6 Limited |
|
Daintree Resources Limited |
Kerogen Investments No. 7 Limited |
|
HKN Holding Ltd |
HKN Holding Ltd * |
|
Kerogen Al-Taqa Fund Investments Holding Limited |
Twinza Oil (PNG) Limited * |
|
|
Kerogen Capital (Asia) Limited |
Twinza Oil (Thailand) Limited * |
|
Kerogen Capital Limited (Cayman) |
Twinza Oil Limited * |
|
Kerogen Capital II Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Co-Investment Holding II Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Co-investment III Investment Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Fund II B Investments Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Fund II Investments Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Fund Investments Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen General Partner Limited |
|
|
Kerogen General Partner II Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Holding II Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen II Investments No. 18 Holding Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 18 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 8A Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 8B Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 1 (HK) Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 1 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 3 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 4 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 7 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Investments No. 8 Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Participating General Partner Limited |
|
|
Kerogen Participating II General Partner Limited |
|
|
Kerry Investment 888 Pty Ltd |
|
|
Plutus Energy Investments Holding Limited |
|
|
Promina Enterprises Limited |
|
|
Zennor Petroleum Limited |
|
|
||
Previous Directorships / Partnerships in the last 5 years: |
Jade Property Holdings Limited |
|
Toledo Mining Corporation PLC |
|
|
|
Ends
Contact Details:
Hurricane Energy plc |
Dr Robert Trice Chief Executive Officer |
+44 (0)1483 862 820 |
Cenkos Securities plc |
Nominated Adviser, Broker and Joint Bookrunner Derrick Lee/Nick Tulloch/Beth McKiernan |
+44 (0)131 220 6939 |
Macquarie Capital (Europe) Limited |
Joint Bookrunner Ken Fleming/Nicholas Harland |
+44 (0)20 3037 2000 |
Vigo Communications
|
Public Relations Patrick d'Ancona/Ben Simons |
+44 (0)20 7830 9700 |
About Hurricane
Hurricane is an oil and gas company focused on hydrocarbon resources in naturally fractured basement reservoirs. The Company's focus is to discover, appraise and develop oil reserves in basement rock. Hurricane has already successfully discovered substantial volumes of oil on the UKCS. The Company has 444-470 mmboe of 2C Contingent Resources and 432-442 mmboe P50 Prospective Resources on acreage it controls 100%.
In 2014, Hurricane drilled and tested an appraisal well on its Lancaster oil field West of Shetland. The highly successful operations demonstrated that the Company could produce commercial quantities of oil from Lancaster. The Company will undertake a further well programme on Lancaster, incorporating a pilot well and a horizontal sidetrack well as part of a continuous drilling programme in the summer of 2016. The horizontal sidetrack well is designed to refine the Lancaster Contingent Resource range (currently 62 - 456 mmboe), will provide a second future production well and will provide new information to help optimally plan the Lancaster field development. The pilot well objectives are to confirm the depth of oil water contact, evaluate the properties of a potential aquifer to establish how supportive it is of production and evaluate the overlying Victory sandstone resource range.
Hurricane is in advanced technical and commercial discussions with potential partners with whom to progress the development of its assets.