By John Lee.
Shares in Irish-based Petrel Resources were trading 20 percent down on Friday after the company said it had reached a settlement in respect of the disposal of 2.2 million Petrel shares by Amira Petroleum‘s advisers notwithstanding a lock-in agreement entered into on 19 August 2013.
According to the company:
On 14 August 2013, the Company announced that it had agreed to acquire from Amira Petroleum N.V. (“Amira Petroleum”) a 20 per cent shareholding in Amira Hydrocarbons Wasit B.V. (“Amira”), the holder of a 25 per cent carried interest in certain oil and gas exploration and production licences in the Wasit Province of Iraq.
The consideration for the acquisition included the issue of 18,947,368 shares in Petrel (representing 19.82 per cent of the enlarged issued share capital of Petrel (“the Initial Consideration Shares”). The Initial Consideration Shares were agreed to be locked-in until the date of spudding the first conventional oil well in respect of Amira’s interest in the Wasit province (the “Spudding Date”) but that, if the Spudding Date had not occurred by 19 August 2018, Petrel could, amongst other things, elect to re-acquire the Initial Consideration Shares for a nominal amount.
As part of the agreement with Amira Petroleum, 2.8 million of the Initial Consideration Shares were, at the direction of Amira Petroleum, issued to its advisers in satisfaction of fees payable by Amira Petroleum (“the Adviser Shares”) and were subject to a lock in agreement as detailed above.
As of the date of this announcement, the Spudding Date has not occurred.
During December 2017, Petrel learnt that 2.2 million of the Adviser Shares had been sold between March and July 2017, notwithstanding the lock-in agreement.
The parties have reached a settlement and agreed that the vendors of the 2.2 million Adviser Shares shall make a payment of £100,000 to the Company (representing approximately 4.5p per Adviser Share sold). The remaining Adviser Shares shall remain subject to the lock-in agreed in 2013.
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Market Abuse Regulation 596/2014.
(Sources: Petrel Resources, Google Finance)