Ascent Resources plc today said it had reached an agreement over further hydrocarbon revenues from the joint venture (JV) operations within the Petisovci concession area in Slovenia.
DISPUTES
The legacy disputes are between the company and its Slovenian JV partner Geoenergo and the JV operating service provider Petrol Geo.
In August 2022, Ascent received its first payment of €650,560 relating to the 2020 and 2021 gas sales proceeds from the PG-10 and PG-11A.
PAYMENTS
In a statement today, Ascent said that the parties had agreed that Ascent Slovenia Ltd (ASL) was entitled to a €857,617 payment for the H1 2022 gas sales revenues.
This accrues interest at a rate of 9% per annum while ASL awaits receipt of payment of these agreed but outstanding amounts.
“Additionally, ASL has accrued a further amount owed to it of circa €370,000 for production through Q3.
“The current balance owed to ASL, as at end September, for the PG-10 and PG-11A wells, is estimated to be circa €1,227,617 and this figure is expected to increase monthly by approximately €100,000 / month assuming forward production of 100,000scm/month and a gas price of €100/MWh.”
ARBITRATION
Ascent and Geoenergo have now completed the high court judge-supervised mediation process.
Ascent today initiated arbitration proceedings against Geoenergo to seek a “binding and enforceable resolution” not available through mediation.
“The arbitration process is targeting immediate payment to ASL of its share of the 2022 PG-10 and PG-11A hydrocarbon sales revenues agreed with Geoenergo but currently withheld by it, the timely payment of all future invoices, and a binding resolution on which wells are included in ASL’s revenue entitlement.
“ASL has a total claim in excess of Euro 4m and expects to make material progress on this domestic arbitration process ahead of the year end.”
ASL DEFAULT
Ascent added that once matters were resolved with Geoenergo, ASL expected to conclude disputed matters with Petrol Geo.
“However, in the meantime, ASL expects during Q4 to enter into a mediation process with Petrol Geo in relation to ASL’s planned contractual default, as announced 28 May 2020, relating to an amount of circa €230k owed to Petrol Geo for services provided in 2019 as well as in relation to invoices rejected by the JV on a monthly basis since April 2020, totalling circa €1.4m.”