Africa Oil & Gas: Tlou Energy raises £4 million for Botswana CBM project

Tlou Energy has raised a total of £4 million for its Botswana CBM project. Funds will be used to undertake additional field appraisal to expand Tlou’s independent gas reserves and to finalise licencing requirements prior to development of the Lesedi CBM Project.

Key Points:

• Tlou’s Share Purchase Plan (SPP) closes with applications totalling A$0.8 million (£0.5 million);
• Tlou has received demand for an Additional Placement to raise a further A$0.7 million (£0.4 million);
• In total, Tlou has raised $6.7 million (£4.0 million) from the Initial Placement announced on 24 March, the SPP and the Additional Placement;
• The total funds raised will be used to undertake additional field appraisal to expand Tlou’s independent gas Reserves and to finalise licencing requirements prior to development of the Lesedi CBM Project.

Share Purchase Plan

Tlou Energy, the AIM and ASX listed company focused on delivering power in Botswana and Southern Africa through the development of coal bed methane (‘CBM’) projects, has announced the completion of its Share Purchase Plan (the ‘SPP’) raising approx. A$0.8 million (approx. £0.5 million).

The Share Purchase Plan will result in the issue of 8,276,275 new ordinary shares at an issue price of A$0.10 per share.  The SPP shares will rank equally with Tlou’s existing shares on issue.  The SPP shares will be allotted to applicants on 27 April 2017. There has been no scale back of applications.

Additional Placement Tlou previously announced a Placement of 51,788,334 new ordinary shares on 24 March 2017 at an issue price of A$0.10 or £0.06 per share, raising approx. A$5.2 million (approx. £3.1 million) (the ‘Initial Placement’).  In conjunction with closing the SPP, Tlou has received additional demand from UK investors and accordingly the Company has resolved to undertake a further placement of 6,780,000 new ordinary shares also at an issue price of £0.06 per share (the ‘Additional Placement Shares’), to raise approx. A$0.7 million (approx. £0.4 million).

The Additional Placement Shares will be issued within Tlou’s existing placement capacity and as such, shareholder approval will not be required.

Application will be made for admission of the SPP Shares and Additional Placement Shares to trading on ASX and AIM, with admission to trading on AIM expected to occur at 8.00 a.m. on 2 May 2017 (London time) and ASX quotation on 27 April 2017.

Work Program

The proceeds of the Initial Placement, SPP and Additional Placement totals A$6.7 million (approximately £4.0 million) and along with existing cash, will be applied by Tlou for the following:

• acquisition and interpretation of new 2D seismic data in areas considered to be highly prospective for additional Reserves by Tlou’s reserve certifiers;
• drilling a limited number of vertical (cored) wells along the new seismic lines (with geophysical logging and coal core gas sampling) to a depth of approximately 500 metres;
• completing various studies (upstream and downstream) required for the submission of the mining licence application and tender for the Botswana Government’s 100 MW CBM pilot project;
• on-going production testing at Selemo, including installing gas engines to run the pumps on the existing wells;
• costs of the various capital raisings noted above; and
• working capital for its Lesedi CBM Project and corporate costs.

The objective of the work program above is to expand the Company’s independently certified gas Reserves and complete the licencing requirements for the Lesedi CBM Project, as well as continuing to progress the RFP with our joint venture partner, Independent Power Corporation PLC, for the proposed up to 100 MW CBM to power project utilising the Company’s gas reserves.

The Additional Placement was managed by Shore Capital Stockbrokers in the United Kingdom.  (Source: Tlou Energy)