Apr 5, 2013
Oryx Petroleum Corporation Limited has filed a preliminary prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in each of provinces of Canada, other than Quebec, in connection with a proposed initial public offering of common shares. The IPO is being underwritten RBC Capital Markets, Barclays Capital Canada Inc. and Merrill Lynch Canada Inc.
Oryx which is focused on Africa and the Middle East has assets in Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Congo (Brazzaville) and Iraq. It was founded in 2010 and is a subsidiary of the Addax and Oryx Group Limited (AOG), which was incorporated in 1987. Founder of AOG, Jean Claude Gandur, was the founder of Addax Petroleum, which he sold to Chinese state-owned Sinopec in 2009 for a reported $9.8 billion. Oryx is his attempt to build a new Addax Petroleum and it is made up of key members of the former senior management team of Addax.
The company said: “AOG’s upstream division, Oryx Petroleum, has filed a preliminary prospectus with the securities authorities in Canada, as the first step in the process of preparing for an initial public offering on the Toronto Stock exchange.”
In spite of its acquisitions, Oryx is yet to reach first oil on any of its assets. The IPO will enable it to accelerate work on its assets. It plans to invest $400 million over the next four or five years and plans to spend $325 million on exploration in 2013 alone.
Oryx has a 38.67 per cent participating interest in the 1400 square kilometre oil mining lease (OML) 141 after farming into the block in 2011.
Awarded as oil prospecting licence (OPL) 229, and later converted into OML 141, the block was awarded to Emerald Energy Resources Limited and Amni International Petroleum Development Company Limited in the 2000 licensing round. Emerald has a 55 per cent stake and is designated the operator while Amni had a 45 per cent stake. Following Oryx’s farm in to the block, Emerald’s stake was diluted to 33 per cent and Amni’s to 27 per cent, giving the original owners of the block a 60 per cent interest. Bluewater Oil and Gas owns a minor interest of 1.35 per cent.
Emerald and Oryx had been looking to partially divest their interests but it seems that with the IPO, Oryx will now be able to finance the development of the block and retain all of its equity. The company will go into the IPO with no debt.