Bahamas Petroleum Company PLC raises £3.75mln as Perseverance drilling continues

Drilling began on the Perseverance exploration well on December 20 and it remains a key focus for the company and its investors.

() has exercised a put option to raise a further £3.75mln, as a result of shares being issued, to support the ongoing Perseverance well programme.

A total of 187.5mln new shares were issued at a price of 2p each. It means that, if remaining available funding sources are drawn in full, the company will complete its funding strategy with an aggregate of US$72mln raised for Perseverance – a 770mln barrel exploration target.

Bahamas Petroleum highlighted that it represents adequate funding for the well plus an extensive 2021 work programme across the company’s suite of production, appraisal and development assets.

READ: BPC eyes Trinidad and Suriname drilling

The 2021 work programme in Trinidad and Suriname is targeting an exit production rate of 2,500 barrels of oil per day.

“In August 2019, BPC embarked on a bold strategy to self-fund the drilling of Perseverance-1 in The Bahamas, as well as to seek to complement that high-impact exploration activity with production and thus cash generative assets,” Bahamas Petroleum chief executive Simon Potter said in a statement.

“We knew it would require capital to facilitate such a growth strategy, and, accordingly, we laid out a clear plan as to how we would secure that capital incrementally over time. Now, with drilling in The Bahamas well underway, and with a broad program of value-adding work about to kick off in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, we continue to draw on the various elements of the funding package we worked hard to put in place over the past 18 months.”

Potter added: “We believe that the delivery of our funding package, and thus the portfolio-wide work program it supports, represents a considerable achievement when considered in the context of depressed equity markets (particularly in the energy sector), oil price weakness, and the material cost, timing and operational challenges caused by both Covid-19 and the last-minute – but ultimately unsuccessful – legal challenge to BPC’s drilling operations in The Bahamas.”