Angus Energy reports it has raised £1.5m in a placing of 150 million ordinary shares.
The company, which operates the Balcombe oil site in West Sussex and the Saltfleetby gas field in Lincolnshire, said the money would advance its current assets and be used for general working “capital purposes”.
The fundraising increases the number of ordinary shares in Angus to more than 916 million.
The placing, announced on 27 January, was accompanied by the issue of a warrant to subscribe for one ordinary share for each placing share, exercisable at any time for up to two years.
The share price fell from 1.50p to 1.08p on the news but later recovered slightly to close the day at 1.11p.
Angus Energy is seeking planning permission for an extended flow test on the well drilled by Cuadrilla at Balcombe in 2013. The application is not due to be considered at the February meeting of West Sussex County Council’s planning committee. The next scheduled committee meeting is on 2 March 2021.
At Saltfleetby, Angus announced earlier this week that it had appointed lawyers to handle a £12 million loan from Aleph Energy Limited. The four-year facility will fund the re-start of production at the field and the development of a geothermal project off the site.
Angus also said almost all elements of the procurement and engineering scheduled had been advanced. Deposits had been made on compressors, two generators and the flare stack. Final quotes had been received on other items. Two former employees of the field are to return.
At the Brockham oil site in Surrey, Angus is waiting for a decision from the Environment Agency on whether it will be allowed to reinject formation water.
DRILL OR DROP? 
Angus Energy may be pretty useless at finding reserves of Oil or Gas, but it is brilliant at attracting free money for its exploration activities.
There seems to be a bottomless pit of willing investors ready to buy shares in a Company that had Sales last year lower than the family business which delivers my milk and newspaper on a morning.
This latest issuance of new shares seems to take gullibility to a new level.
Last financial year , the Directors were so pleased with performance that they awarded themselves £690,000 of potatoes. This was over three times the value of Sales (£200,000) which resulted in losses of £5.8 million. Its cash balance of £3million was largely achieved by borrowing matching sums both in Short and Long Term Finance.
How all this translates into a business which its Directors regard as a “Going Concern” requires considerable creative thinking. It is certainly going somewhere – and that may be down the drain, accompanied by its 916 million share certificates.
Well, pT, if you believe that, then don’t invest. But, on the same line of thinking you might not invest in any start up business, where initial costs are substantial, share prices are volatile, but the expectation is of future profits and/or higher share prices.
You would have missed out on Tesla, as well! Certainly would if you had considered the remuneration of the directors also.
(Milk AND newspaper, and delivered!! The unacceptable face of capitalism. Just think how many Angus shares you could buy if you gave up the newspapers.)
Not actually convinced that we should regard Angus Energy as a start up: its been around since you were in short trousers.
Its shares have tanked about 96% in five years , so no, I don’t think I will be investing my newspaper money in it. The real point, of course, is that low cap companies engaged in exploration rarely return value to those who supply the original seedcorn i.e. the early providers of Equity.
The money is made by the financial institutions that provide the borrowing for subsequent stages of development after the original funding has been burnt. The more unlikely the project is to generate cash, the higher is the coupon on the debt. It is this leverage, with an Operator saddled with debt, that makes them highly unsuitable vehicles to engage in activity for which they would be incapable of meeting any environmental liability. In fact these sort of companies are financially engineered to make sure that this is so.
Searching for unwanted gas and oil is primarily an opportunity for others to sell sub-prime debt..
If you think I’m wrong. Martyn, provide me with an illustration of a low cap company engaged in exploration within the UK that differs from my model.
I believe you simply do not understand AIM, pT, and if that is the case, best you avoid any companies included within it’s ranks.
Your comment about 916m share certificates makes it rather obvious.
There will be many Angus shareholders sitting on shares that have cost them absolutely nothing. I will not explain how that may have been achieved, but your comments will have been a source of amusement for them. Yes, there will be others who have not understood AIM either, and made the sort of mistakes you indicate, but that is the same for any sector.
I have watched the same approach on DoD for a long while, with those who want to, trying to imply those who invest in such companies are mugs and they are more intelligent. Perhaps it may be better to show that intelligence rather than just slagging off those who make their own, but different, decisions?
Unwanted oil and gas?
So, why is the UK STILL importing such large quantities of BOTH and predicted to do so for many years to come? That means demand is greater than current domestic supply. Unwanted by yourself, maybe. Angus investment unwanted by yourself, maybe. But, both will continue.
Martyn. I asked for an example and you failed to provide one. I am not surprised.
DoD is not an investment forum which is why your regular references to buying shares in TESLA are completely beside the point.. However I think it unlikely that those holding shares in Angus Energy will have been amused as you are by the destruction of share value.
The direction of travel now is to reduce the extraction of hydrocarbons,. The pursuit of further reserves in the UK which will have higher unit costs of production than those available elsewhere in the world — or even in offshore waters of the UK, – makes it inevitable that these onshore ventures will fail.
You will have seen that recent Bank of England policy is to discourage the provision of new bonds to fund onshore development.. And the Bank itself is also under fire for buying back old bonds associated with hydrocarbon extraction as part of its programme of Quantitative Easing. The financial world is changing.
And yes, “new” gas is unwanted. You must be the only person alive who thinks that the planet could consume all the existing reserves of oil and gas and avoid climate catastrophe.
Your own love child ,Cuadrilla, has belatedly got the message and stolen its tents away under cover of darkness. That’s a figure of speech, by the way. I don’t need advice on how to go camping.
But you do need advice on who started this “discourse” regarding investors and Angus, pT! Fortunately there is a record from 29th at 3.19pm. Perhaps you wanted a one sided discourse, but sorry, that’s not what you get on a public forum.
Just to add some further amusement/shock for you, I have invested in Angus in the past and made a profit. I suspect I am not the exception. I have done the same in Egdon, UJO and UKOG, almost done well enough to buy my papers, and certainly enough to fund the lease of a hybrid to test. Perhaps Egdon would have allowed me to do the same again today? But, an interesting experience-it was rubbish, so have not repeated that. The hybrid, that is.
Ahh, you mean like those existing reserves over the horizon! Well, they are all good for the climate catastrophe! And those who advocate them as a solution are no friends of the environment or climate, have no knowledge of the difference in standards and should be exposed as such. That one really does need some new clothes.
And, no, the unit costs of production for a number of the UK on shore sites have been detailed quite recently and they are NOT more expensive, even before transport costs are added.
And, that direction of travel? Hmm. Not so in Libya, if you read recent announcements, not so in other parts of the middle east, not so in Cambodia, and not so in Turkey. You ignore population growth. Take that into account, and much more oil and gas will be utilised AS WELL as more alternatives. This is like the organic market debate. Parts of the world will consume their time pontificating about their superior morals and how the high cost premiums are justified, whilst much of the rest of the world is more concerned about being able to get a cheap source of protein, and once that has been achieved guess what? Many of them want to get on a ‘plane!