Open offer and £70m share placing whips up a storm for Hurricane Energy
Hurricane Energy today announced it has conditionally fundraised £70m in a share placing to help develop its drilling operations in the North Sea.
The UK-based oil and gas company has proposed an issue of almost 206m placing shares at a cost of 34p per share with existing and other institutional investors.
The group will also raise up to £4.4m through an open offer.
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Net proceeds will be used to advance the development of Hurricane's Greater Lancaster Area fields, acquire a range of subsea equipment and to drill two exploration wells.
Chief executive Robert Trice said:
Hurricane has had an exceptionally busy operational period of activity with outstanding results from the pilot and horizontal sidetrack wells.
Building on those results, we are delighted to announce today’s fundraising which allows us to capitalise on the operational momentum and proceed imminently with a campaign to further improve our understanding of the Greater Lancaster Area, potentially add considerable near-field resources and secure the development timetable for the Lancaster early production system.
I am delighted that the proceeds from the fundraising enable us to benefit from valuable operational continuity through the continued use of Transocean’s spitsbergen rig and experienced crew at a beneficial point in the oilfield services cycle.
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Hurricane is a leading UK explorer in the west Shetland field, which could produce up to 2bn barrels of oil, according to official estimates.
Cenkos was the lead broker to the fundraise.