Canadian Overseas Petroleum launches £2.5m fundraising

Calgary-based oil firm Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) announced a new £2.5m funding programme as the firm looked to raise capital to cover its ongoing general and administrative expenses at its West African operations.

COPL said the salaries of its geologists, geophysicists, reservoir engineers, drilling engineers and in-house counsel made up the bulk of its $410,000 a month costs.

The group said COFARCO SAS of Paris and London firm Zeus Capital would be handling the project-level funding for its upcoming work programmes, including planned activity at its Nigerian joint venture with Shoreline Energy where appraisal drilling was slated to start between late 2017 and early 2018.

Arthur Millholland, COPL chief executive, said, "This placing will strengthen our balance sheet while we concurrently work towards finalising the project financing, operations program and plan for our OPL 226 project offshore Nigeria."

As of 1030 BST, shares had dropped 17.33% to sit at 1.24p.