Carnarvon raises funds for operations offshore Australia

Australia’s Carnarvon Petroleum has successfully completed the capital raising of $50 million, which will be used to fund its appraisal and exploration activities on Australia’s North West Shelf.

Carnarvon announced it was conducting a placement to institutional and sophisticated investors to raise approximately $50 million last Tuesday.

The placement comprised the issue of 151.6 million new shares at an issue price of $0.33 per share. The capital raising was via a placement to Australian and global institutions and sophisticated investors.

Announcing the success of its capital raising on Thursday, Carnarvon said that the placement provides additional funding which will be applied to the company’s appraisal and exploration activities in Australia’s North West Shelf, to engineering and design studies relating to Dorado, and to working capital including appraisal of the world class Dorado discovery by drilling the Dorado-2 and Dorado-3 wells, starting in April 2019; engineering and design studies to develop the Dorado field; potential development focused 3D seismic over the Dorado and Roc fields.

In addition, it also includes drilling the prospective Roc South-1 exploration well which is located between the Roc and Dorado fields; and potential 3D seismic acquisition over prospective exploration acreage which includes the Pavo and Apus prospects.

The Dorado discovery, which is located in the Bedout basin, 100 kilometers north of Karratha, is operated by Santos and Carnarvon is a partner with a 20 percent stake. The Dorado appraisal wells will be drilled using the Noble Tom Prosser jack-up rig.

Managing Director, Adrian Cook, said: “This capital raising received significant interest, which is consistent with the growing investor interest in Carnarvon since the Dorado discovery. I want to thank our shareholders for their ongoing support and also welcome a number of new Australian and global institutions onto our register. This funding will ensure that Carnarvon is in a robust financial position going into our exciting 2019 program.”