Carnarvon in $20m raising

Carnarvon Petroleum has boosted its coffers with a $16 million capital raising to fund drilling at its Buffalo oil field in the North West Shelf, while also announcing a share purchase plan to raise up to $4 million.

West Perth-based Carnarvon said it has issued shares at 13 cents each, representing a 14.5 per cent discount on the 30-day volume-weighted average price.

Euroz Securities acted as lead manager to the placement.

The share purchase plan will conducted under the same conditions as the placement, with a $15,000 maximum investment from eligible shareholders.

Chief executive Adrian Cook said the funds from the raising would be spent on the Buffalo-10 well and enable drilling to occur soon.

“The Buffalo project has the potential to generate significant value that’s ideally suited to Carnarvon in terms of scale, time to first production and overall risk profile,” he said.

“This capital raise demonstrates our expeditious approach to make this production opportunity a reality for shareholders, particularly as we see oil prices currently strengthening from the recent lows of previous years.

“Carnarvon now offers investors two high quality, organically derived projects progressing to commercialisation phases in the near term.”

The current expected timing for drilling to commence on the first well is between March and September in 2019.

Carnarvon is currently drilling at its Phoenix oil field.

Shares in Carnarvon were off 14.3 per cent at 15 cents each.