Dana Petroleum, said yesterday it planned to raise about £57million through a share placing to help fund its 2009 capital spending programme.
The Aberdeen-based oil and gas operator said the placing of around 4.34million shares – about 5% of its issued share capital – would be with existing and new institutional investors.
Dana also announced a successful appraisal well on the Fulla gas-condensate discovery in Norwegian waters, and said the two wells drilled so far on the find showed estimated reserves of 60-105million barrels of oil equivalent, and the field was likely to be commercial.
Partners in Fulla are Statoil (50% and operator), Svenska Petroleum (25%), Det Norske Oljeselskap (15%) and Dana (10%).
Dana chief executive Tom Cross said: “Given Fulla’s close proximity to existing infrastructure, we look forward to the early consideration of development options.”
Dana also noted that it had successfully completed the acquisition of Bow Valley Energy on April 30 and said that from May 1 the assets acquired added to the company’s interests in four producing oil fields in the UK central North Sea, with a fifth project, the development of the Ettrick oil field, now expected on stream in the middle of summer.
The company said that, in addition, the planned sale of a UK licence including part of the undeveloped Peik field by Bow Valley to Centrica had been completed last Friday, while integration of the Bow Valley assets into Dana was now well under way.
It said that production to April 30 had averaged about 38,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).
The Bow Valley assets are now adding about 5,400boepd.
The Aberdeen company said that the group’s average production for this year was still expected to be in the range 43,000-47,000boepd, within the guidance previously provided, but probably towards the lower end of the range.
Dana said development of the Babbage gas field (Dana 40%) in the UK southern North Sea and the E18 gas field (Dana 5.228%) in the Dutch North Sea were both on track with first production scheduled for the first quarter of 2010 and third quarter of this year respectively.
The company added that its overall 2009 capital investment programme, including projected spending on the newly acquired Bow Valley assets, was expected to be about £244million.
It also said that it expected to drill about 17 exploration wells this year, with its exploration programme for 2010 due to be refined over the coming months, reflecting rig availability and discussions with co-venturers.