Aberdeen-based oil explorer Xcite Energy today said it was to use £2.5million from an investment facility to help it towards first oil on the Bentley field.
The Aim-listed firm has a facility with US investment firm Yorkville Advisors giving access to a total of £150million, of which it has already spent nearly £70million, a statement revealed last month.
The firm said then it had also been in discussions with banks to fund its first-stage development on the field, about 100 miles east of Shetland.
The facility, a so-called standby equity distribution agreement, will see Yorkville issued with ordinary shares at a price of £1.153 per share.
Xcite gave no further information on its plans today. It is still waiting on approval of its field development plan for the field from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
The Rowan Norway jack-up rig, to be used by Xcite, arrived in Dundee in September for work before being moved out to the Bentley field to start drilling; previously predicted to start by the end of this year.
Xcite has said previously its plans for first-stage production were to use a simultaneous drilling and production rig with an infield floating production vessel for offtake. The core Bentley area has been estimated to have 150million recoverable barrels of oil.