Acquisition of an additional interest in Wressle and Broughton North
Egdon Resources plc (AIM:EDR) is pleased to announce the acquisition of an additional 5% interest in PEDL180 and PEDL182, which contain the Egdon operated Wressle oil discovery and Broughton North Prospect, from Celtique Energie Petroleum Limited.
Under the terms of the agreement Egdon will acquire an additional 5% interest in PEDL180 and PEDL182 from Celtique Energie Petroleum Limited for a deferred cash consideration of £0.417m payable on commencement of production (“First Oil”). The effective date for the transaction is 1 January 2018.
Union Jack Oil PLC (“UJO”, AIM: UJO) and Humber Oil & Gas Limited (“Humber”, private) will each also acquire 12.50% in both PEDL180 and PEDL182 from Celtique Energie Petroleum Limited on the same terms under separate deals.
Egdon will shortly submit a new planning application for the Wressle development which has the benefit of information from additional site investigation boreholes and two deeper cored boreholes to ensure it addresses in detail the matters highlighted by the Inspector in his Decision Notice to refuse the planning appeals in January 2018. An application to extend the current planning consent for the Wressle site was submitted on 13 April 2018.
The transaction is subject to approval from the Oil and Gas Authority. On completion, the interests in PEDL180 and 182 will become
Egdon Resources U.K. Limited (Operator) 30.00%
Europa Oil and Gas plc 30.00%
Union Jack Oil Plc 27.50%
Humber Oil & Gas Limited 12.50%
Mark Abbott, Managing Director of Egdon Resources plc, said:
“Today’s transaction underlines our confidence in the quality and deliverability of the Wressle project.
We have been able to add to our existing material interest in the licences with the consideration deferred to the point of revenue generation from the Wressle field. The transaction emphasises our strategy to achieve a balanced business comprised of revenue generating conventional assets to complement the high-impact UK unconventional licences within our portfolio.”
Response to Written Ministerial Statement on UK Shale Gas
Egdon Resources welcomes the Government’s support and commitment to our industry as laid out in the Written Ministerial Statement (“WMS”) of today from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government .(DHCLG).
The statement itself constitutes a material consideration in planning decisions (i.e. carries weight in law) and reiterates that shale gas development is of national importance. The Government will publish revised planning practice guidance on shale development in the summer. It will also launch two consultations in the period; one that will consider allowing exploration wells to be drilled under permitted development (i.e. without the requirement of a full planning application) and the other to consult on the inclusion of shale production projects into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime.
The full text of the WMS can be found at
Commenting Mark Abbott, Managing Director of Egdon Resources plc, said:
“Egdon welcomes the Government’s announcement today which emphasised the national importance that shale gas exploration and development has in delivering a safe and secure energy source, whilst meeting the country’s Climate Change obligations. In particular we welcome the measures the Government has introduced on making the planning process “faster and fairer” and providing additional resources to help stretched local authorities.
Gas is used to heat more than 80% of the UK’s households and for cooking in more than 60% of the UK’s homes. Whilst renewable sources of energy provide a growing share of our electricity, gas still accounts for nearly half.
We currently import 50% of our gas needs at a significant financial cost to the UK taxpayer – over £13 million a day – and that figure is set to grow to almost 80% by 2035.
The UK’s gas reserves contribute to ensuring the country has a secure, affordable and low carbon energy source.”
North Kelsey and Biscathorpe Planning Update
Egdon Resources plc (AIM:EDR) advises that its applications to extend to December 2020, the existing planning permissions to drill conventional exploratory oil wells at both the North Kelsey-1 and Biscathorpe-2 site locations were approved at today’s meeting of the Lincolnshire County Council Planning Committee.
Commenting on the decisions, Mark Abbott, Managing Director of Egdon Resources plc, said:
“We are pleased with today’s decisions to extend the planning permissions as it enables us to progress our drilling plans at both the North Kelsey and Biscathorpe conventional oil prospects. For Biscathorpe-2, following recent farm-outs on this well, we now look forward to drilling this high potential conventional oil prospect with operations commencing around mid-2018. We hope to conclude further farm-out negotiations for North Kelsey-1 shortly enabling drilling to be targeted around the end of 2018 providing a further material near-term catalyst for Egdon”
TR-1 Notification of Major Holdings
TR-1: Standard form for notification of major holdings
Directors’ Share Dealing
The Company has been informed of the following recent transaction by a Director:
Mark Abbott, Managing Director, purchased 325,000 ordinary shares via his SIPP at an average price of 6.8 p.
Following this transaction Mark Abbott holds interests in 8,089,387 ordinary shares representing 3.11% of the share capital of the Company.
The issued share capital of Egdon Resources plc consists of 259,984,822 ordinary shares of 1 pence each with voting rights. No Shares are held in treasury. Therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 259,984,822.