JERSEY OIL AND GAS PLC

Business and Financial Review • Dec 9, 2015

National Storage Mechanism | Additional information

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RNS Number : 4265I

Jersey Oil and Gas PLC

09 December 2015

09 December 2015

Jersey Oil and Gas plc

("Jersey Oil & Gas" or the "Company")

Corporate Update

Jersey Oil & Gas (AIM: JOG), an independent upstream oil and gas company ‎focused on the UK Continental Shelf region ("UKNS") of the North Sea, is pleased to provide a corporate update. 

Working capital position

Further to the successful completion of the acquisition of Jersey Oil and Gas E&P Limited in August 2015 (the "Acquisition") and, inter alia, the strengthening of the Company's Board and senior management team, we have been optimising the Group's cost base for a low oil price environment and actively managing the legacy asset portfolio.

At a corporate level, the Board is utilising the Group's existing resources prudently, minimising costs and identifying efficiencies.  Accordingly, the Board is now confident that the Group's current cash reserves are sufficient to fund the Group's anticipated working capital requirements into the second half of 2016.

Potential asset Acquisitions

The management team has been actively seeking to progress the Group's business strategy, as announced at the time of the Acquisition, namely to acquire UK North Sea producing oil and/or gas assets in order to unlock the inherent value of the Group's existing tax losses.  The Company has undertaken significant evaluation work on a number of potential opportunities and put forward several bids on a variety of different assets.  Given current market conditions, the Board believes that now is an opportune time to acquire such assets and remains confident, given progress to date, that the Company will be able to do so within a reasonable time frame.

Andrew Benitz, Chief Executive Officer of Jersey Oil & Gas, commented:

"As our shareholders would expect, we have continued to identify cost savings and carefully control expenditure whilst working hard to achieve our stated strategic objectives.  We are confident of securing suitably attractive producing assets in the UKNS and it is the Board's view that conditions currently are favourable for us to beneficially acquire producing assets within the North Sea on attractive commercial terms."

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Enquiries:

Jersey Oil & Gas plc	Andrew Benitz, CEO	C/o Camarco: Tel:  020 3757 4983
Strand Hanson Limited	James Harris Matthew Chandler	Tel:  020 7409 3494
FirstEnergy Capital LLP	Hugh Sanderson David van Erp	Tel:  020 7448 0200
Camarco	Billy Clegg Georgia Mann  Zoe Moulton	Tel:  020 3757 4983

Notes to editors:

The Group's strategy is focused on maintaining, developing and exploiting a portfolio of North Sea assets with a greater focus on producing assets in order to seek to unlock the inherent value in the Group's existing tax losses. The Group is currently seeking to assess and acquire potential further North Sea oil and/or gas producing assets, some of which have already been identified and are currently undergoing due diligence and/or subject to ongoing commercial negotiations. Any potential acquisitions that are taken forward are intended to be financed from one or more of the Group's balance sheet, the proceeds from strategic sales of selected parts of the Group's existing asset portfolio and further equity and debt capital raises. 

The Group's target acquisition profile includes mature oil and/or gas production assets with long tail-end production profiles and upside potential, from principally satellite fields with production-based tariff agreements, limited exposure to host platform costs, low capex and opex costs and manageable decommissioning liabilities. 

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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