Borders & Southern Petroleum plc posted a decrease of £1 million in cash as it continues to seek a farm-in partner for its three production licences in the South Falkland Basin.
APPRAISAL
Interim results show the company held cash of $756,000 as at 30 June (June 2023: $2.41m and December 2023: $1.9m).
Operating loss for the period was $578,000 (30 June 2023: $558,000).
Administrative expenses fell amounted to $581,000 (2023: $603,000).
The company has no debt.
Chief executive Harry Baker said that “important commercial decisions” and “key changes” made since March aimed to move the business towards monetisation of the Darwin gas condensate discovery.
Steps include further refinement of phased early production that requires “relatively low capex and offers accelerated payback” and changing its energy financial advisor to a “much larger company with international relationships” to find a partner.
Borders also continues to focus on lowering its cost base and has moved offices to reduce overheads.
The company has also applied to extend its production licences, covering a total 10,000km2, beyond the end of 2024, with discussions at an “advanced stage”.
Mr Baker added that the longer time now envisaged to deliver renewable energies had seen the energy industry “rebalancing” and “refocusing investment” on exploration and production.
“This has led to much more interest in material projects like Darwin that can be brought into production much faster than the lead time and costs involved in new exploration in frontier locations.
“The company, therefore, remains confident that because of greater renewed upstream industry investment and exploration activity, Darwin will be a beneficiary of this trend.
“Darwin is a world-class asset awaiting appraisal and we now expect to be able to move forward to the next phase of its development.”
The company has to date acquired 2,517 km2 of 3D seismic and drilled two exploration wells, making the Darwin discovery in its first well.