Independent Oil & Gas Sets Well Drilling Date; To Issue More Shares

By Alex MacDonald

LONDON--Independent Oil & Gas PLC (IOG.LN) said Thursday it expects to start drilling an appraisal well on the Skipper oil discovery on July 22 and plans to issue shares to the drill rig operator as a form of payment for services to be rendered.

Skipper lies in Block 9/21a in license P1609 in the northern North Sea. IOG, the owner and operator of the license, expects the well drilling to take approximately 22 days and plans to announce the results in mid-August.

In the meantime, it confirmed that it has paid drill rig operator Transocean Ltd. (RIG) $1.73 million in advance for its services by issuing 2.7 million shares at 18.375 pence share.

Independent Oil & Gas will now issue 6.4 million shares 15.375 pence a share to Transocean to satisfy the balance of the required advance payment and associated costs.

A further 75,000 shares will be issued to another contractor for services rendered.

The aforementioned share issue accounts for 9% of the company's enlarged 102 million shares outstanding.

The company believes that further drilling at Skipper will help convert an estimated 34.1 million barrels of contingent oil resources, based on a 25% recovery factor, into proven and probable reserves.

Write to Alex MacDonald at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 14, 2016 03:41 ET (07:41 GMT)

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