Touchstone Exploration planning £3m private placement

The company said it was raising gross proceeds of £3m by way of a placing of 25,784,285 new common shares of no par value, at a price of 11.5p per new common share.

It said the placement price represented a 6.1% discount to 12.25p, which was the closing price of the company's common shares on AIM on 7 December.

The company had previously announced that it was planning to drill four wells on its Coora 2 and WD-8 properties, starting in January.

It said it intended to use the net proceeds from the private placement of approximately £2.7m to finance the expansion of its 2018 drilling programme from four wells to 10 wells.

The additional wells were expected to be drilled on its Coora 1, WD-4, WD-8 and South Palo Seco properties.

In conjunction with the enlarged drilling programme, Touchstone's board also approved a 24-well recompletion programme in 2018.

“We are pleased to be able to commit this additional funding into a continuous 10 well 2018 drilling programme in Trinidad,” said Touchstone president and CEO Paul Baay.

“Not only will the enlarged capital programme allow for greater cost efficiencies, it will also satisfy our lease operatorship agreement minimum work obligations through 2020.

“We would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support as we enter an ambitious growth period in 2018.”