Eland Oil and Gas said last night it had raised £15.2million from a sale of new shares in the north-east company.
The Westhill-based firm, which focuses on exploration in west Africa, added the stock was placed at 55p per share.
Shares in the oversubscribed offer were made available to new and existing eligible institutional investors.
Panmure Gordon (UK) acted as lead bookrunner, supported by Pareto Securities and Canaccord Genuity.
Some of the net proceeds will be used to accelerate the start of a workover and side-track of the Opuama-7 well – part of the OML40 licence in the Niger Delta.
Chief executive George Maxwell said: “Eland now has the funds available to accelerate drilling activity across our development projects.
“We intend on deploying these funds immediately as we focus on growing our production significantly, and drilling preparations for the side-tracking of Opuama will commence imminently.
“We look forward to updating shareholders on our progress,” added the chief executive.
Results from the company on Tuesday revealed pre-tax losses of £24.3million for 2016, against losses of £5.2million the year before. Revenue for the latest period came in at around £1.8million, down from about £14million previously.
Eland is poised to benefit from a return to operation of the Forcados terminal in Nigeria, allowing it to bring its Opuama asset back onstream at significantly higher production rates following a successful workover of the Opuama-3 well.