Borders & Southern raises£1.5m to advance Darwin development

Borders & Southern Petroleum successfully raised £1.5m on Wednesday, to advance the development of its wholly-owned Darwin Gas Condensate discovery, located offshore the Falkland Islands.

The AIM-traded firm said the fundraising was carried out via a placing and subscription by several directors of the company.

A total of 100 million new shares would be issued at a price of 1.5p each, representing a 16.67% discount to its closing mid-price of 1.8p on 1 October.

The fundraising included the placing of 69.67 million shares and the subscription of 30.33 million shares, with a significant portion of the funds coming from the company’s board. chairman Harry Dobson, CEO Harry Baker, and non-executive directors Sean Guest and Will Hodson contributing a total of £505,000.

Borders & Southern said the funds would be used to cover the company’s licence and discovery area fees, technical and commercial studies, general administrative expenses, and to push forward the appraisal of the Darwin discovery.

It had also engaged a new international advisor to assist with the recently relaunched farm-out process, with progress described as encouraging so far.

“We are seeking to bring in a partner to move Darwin forward by either testing Darwin East or drilling another target and, as previously stated, have engaged a new International advisor to assist in this process,” said chief executive officer Harry Baker.

“The funds raised will assist the company in progressing this. We are encouraged by progress on the recently relaunched farm-out process thus far and look forward to providing further updates in the coming months.”

“We only raised one year's overheads as we believe that the company can make progress on the farm-out which would place it in a much stronger position in the future.”

At 1327 BST, shares in Borders & Southern Petroleum were down 4.53% at 1.72p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.