United Oil raises £3m to fund new ventures
Irish exploration company United Oil and Gas has said it is evaluating “a number” of potential projects after raising gross proceeds of £3m (€3.4m) in a share placing to fund development work.
The company is active in the UK, Italy, and Jamaica, and has a long-term strategy of building a portfolio of licences in eastern Europe, South America, and Africa. It also hasn’t ruled out a long-term look at licence opportunities offshore Ireland.
United chief executive Brian Larkin said the oversubscribed placing provided “further validation of our strategy of building a strong and diverse portfolio of late-stage development projects in Europe and high-impact exploration in the Caribbean”.
“Our portfolio already includes a commercial gas discovery onshore Italy that is currently going through the permitting process, an interest in the upcoming well to appraise the Colter discovery in the UK which lies on the same trend as onshore Europe’s most prolific oil field, and a 20% interest in the Tullow Oil-operated Walton-Morant licence offshore Jamaica, which holds the 200m-barrel Colibri target,” he said.
“We do not intend to stop here, and these funds will be used to facilitate the expansion of our portfolio.”
Analysts expect the £3m to be used to cover drilling costs at the Colter well and the reprocessing of 3D seismic data in Jamaica.
The latest financial figures from United Oil and Gas show that the company’s losses widened from £129,355 to £438,801, on a year-on-year basis, in the first six months of 2018.
