Sunshine Oilsands (TSX:SUO, StockForum), a Calgary-based firm engaged in the evaluation and development of oil properties for bitumen production in the Athabasca Oilsands, announced the company's strategic financial plans for Q2 2014.
According to the news release, the company is actively progressing focused initiatives to obtain financing to re-start construction on its first West Ells 10,000 bbl/d commercial Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (“SAGD”) project.
Financing initiatives for the aforementioned project are geared toward the consideration of debt and equity-linked alternatives along with joint ventures, farm-outs, asset sales and sale lease-back transactions. The company warned investors that there can be no assurances that its activities will result in any financing transaction.
The release went on to note that the company will remain in a trading “black-out” enacted August 6, 2013 for all persons that are subject to the Sunshine's corporate disclosure and trading policy and is anticipated to continue until current financing alternative review processes have been completed.
The company also announced that a special meeting will be held April 15, 2014 with shareholders being asked to refresh the 20% equity issuance mandate to allow Sunshine to allot and issue shares up to a maximum of 20% of its aggregate issued and outstanding share capital.
When financing is secured, company intends to move forward quickly to recommence the construction at West Ells with the intent of achieving first steam late in 2014.
Company Co-Chairmen Michael Hibberd and Songning Shen, commented, “We have gone through a determined and intense effort to address internal management leadership matters. In view of the challenges we have faced, we are hugely impressed by the manner in which those challenges have been examined and addressed by our Board of Directors and our staff.”
They went on to add, “Our new management team has made changes to our internal cost controls and capital allocations processes aimed at ensuring that go-forward budget and capital management requirements for 2014 are addressed in a rigorous manner. We already have, and remain committed to retaining, highly skilled financial management and technical teams with a track record of 'on time, on budget' project delivery.”
Then they illustrated further, “After financing initiatives are completed, the Board of Directors intends to appoint a full-time Chief Financial Officer to assume the CFO functions and the Board of Directors will formally address assignment of permanent key leadership titles.”
And then they finally concluded, “We can assure all of our shareholders that the Board of Directors remains fully committed to addressing the interests of our shareholders. This, combined with the commitment by our highly skilled management and technical teams and the support shown by our vendors and contractors, sets the backbone for our determination to push the West Ells project forward.”
Sunshine Oilsands was in the news recently when the company clarified an announcement regarding record date three days ago.
Shares slipped 15.15% on the news to $0.14 per share.
Currently there are 3.2b outstanding shares with a market cap of $454.9 million.