Panoro Energy ASA

Regulatory Filings • Aug 24, 2022

Panoro Energy - Award of Technical Co-operation Permit 218 Onshore South Africa

Panoro Energy - Award of Technical Co-operation Permit 218 Onshore South Africa

Oslo, 24 August 2022 - Panoro Energy ASA ("Panoro" or the "Company" with OSE

Ticker: PEN) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a 100 per cent

interest in Technical Co-operation Permit ("TCP") 218 located onshore northern

Free State province, South Africa.

TCP 218 covers a surface area of approximately 6,608 Km[2] in the highly

prospective Northern Karoo Basin which has a proven working natural gas and

Helium system with nearby analogues including the producing Virginia gas field

(operated by Renergen) and the Smaldeel gas field.

The TCP award is for a period of 12 months during which time Panoro will have

exclusive rights to undertake desktop studies of existing data sources and field

work in order to evaluate the prospectivity of the permit area, after which the

Company will have the option to apply for an Exploration Right covering the

permit area. This represents a ground-floor entry at minimal cost with no impact

on the Company's guided 2022 capex or on Panoro's overall corporate strategy.

John Hamilton, CEO of Panoro, commented:

"The award of TCP 218 will allow us to incubate a potentially exciting natural

gas and Helium play. While the technical fundamentals and market opportunities

for both natural gas and Helium in South Africa represent a compelling

proposition, the renewable nature of the resource, possibility to displace coal

fired power and many applications of Helium make for an equally compelling

investment from an ESG perspective. We are grateful to the Petroleum Agency of

South Africa for the award of TCP 218 and look forward to further evaluating the

permits high potential in the coming months."

High Potential Helium Basin

Some of the highest global concentrations of Helium have been recorded in gas

wells and boreholes in the North Karoo Basin. Helium concentrations of two to

four per cent are common with concentrations in excess of 20 per cent recorded.

While a by product of natural gas production, Panoro believes that the Helium

potential of TCP 218 offers an additional outright commercial opportunity that

can be both scalable and de-linked from hydrocarbon prices. Numerous strategic

industries including the global semiconductor, fibre optic, medical imaging and

aerospace industries are irreversibly dependent on a stable and secure supply of

Helium. With the US strategic Helium reserve depleting in recent years the need

for less dominant alternative reliable supply from geopolitically low risk

sources is intensifying. Panoro believes that South Africa has the potential to

become a strategically important source of Helium supply to the global market.

Natural Gas Opportunity

The proven play concept Panoro intends to evaluate is biogenic gas generated by

groundwater circulating through large faults and contacting bacteria, meaning

the natural gas is generated through a continual process and therefore is

renewable.  Panoro also intends to evaluate the potential for conventional oil

and gas prospectivity in the TCP area.

Panoro believes that favourable dynamics exist for domestic gas opportunities in

South Africa where power outages are persistent. In the power sector legislation

has been amended to allow for up to 50MW of power generation capacity to be

installed and operated without a full generation license. In the event that

commercial quantities of natural gas are proved on TCP 218 its close proximity

to some of South Africa's major demand centres lends itself as a potential

supply source for domestic gas to power projects. South Africa presently has a

high dependency on coal which accounts for approximately 70 per cent of energy

by source in the country.  Any new gas supply to underpin domestic power

generation projects can therefore help displace coal as the dominant energy

source.

Enquiries

Qazi Qadeer, Chief Financial Officer

Tel:     +44 203 405 1060

Email: investors@panoroenergy.com

About Panoro Energy

Panoro Energy ASA is an independent exploration and production company based in

London and listed on the main board of the Oslo Stock Exchange with the ticker

PEN. Panoro holds production, exploration and development assets in Africa,

namely a producing interest in Block G, offshore Equatorial Guinea, the Dussafu

License offshore southern Gabon, the TPS operated assets, Sfax Offshore

Exploration Permit and Ras El Besh Concession, offshore Tunisia and

participation interest in an exploration Block 2B, offshore South Africa.

Visit us at www.panoroenergy.com

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