Canacol Energy Ltd.’s (
TSX: T.CNE,
Stock Forum) subsidiary, Canacol Energy Colombia S.A. (Canacol Colombia), has acquired a right to an 80% interest in each of the COR 4 and COR 12 exploration and production contracts located in the Upper Magdalena Basin of Colombia.
According to the
Canacol Energy press release, the new contracts are located adjacent to the corporation's existing COR 39 and COR 11 exploration and production contracts and are prospective for both shallow conventional oil exploration targets within the Guadalupe sandstone reservoirs, and deeper non-conventional oil exploration targets within the thick Cretaceous Villeta - La Luna shale.
"With the acquisition of these two contracts the corporation has increased its position within this developing shale oil play in the Magdalena Valley of Colombia to over 545,000 net acres, giving Canacol the second largest shale position in Colombia after Ecopetrol, the state oil company,” said Charle Gamba, President and CEO of Canacol. “With several important near term catalysts on the horizon this year with respect to shale oil exploration on the part of both Canacol and other operators in Colombia, this pre-emptive acquisition consolidates the corporation's position in this high potential play at very attractive metrics ahead of these important catalysts."
Pursuant to the terms of the agreements executed in respect of these transactions, Canacol Colombia acquired a right to an 80% interest in each of the COR 4 and COR 12 contracts from Rio Bravo Commercial Enterprises S.A. and Petromont Colombia S.A. respectively, in consideration for (i) a total payment of US$15 million (US$7.5 million for each block) payable entirely in newly issued common shares of the corporation (ii) agreeing to fund the vendors' remaining 20% share of exploration commitments in the first two phases (unified into a single phase in the case of COR 12) of each of the contracts, (iii) granting a 3.0% overriding royalty to the applicable vendor for each block, and (iv) agreeing to the payment of a one-time bonus totalling US$5.0 million in the event that any one of the two blocks is subsequently successfully farmed out by Canacol Colombia to a third party.
The share consideration is payable at a deemed price of $6.79 per common share, equal to the volume weighted average trading price of common shares for the twenty trading day period ending on January 29, 2014. The corporation issued 2.5 million common shares in satisfaction of the share consideration.
Canacol is a Canadian-based international oil and gas corporation with operations focused in Colombia and Ecuador.
On Friday, Canacol slipped 1.5% and was trading at $6.77 a share. The company had a market cap of $586.9 million, based on 86.7 million shares outstanding.