IOG plc said its financial position remained “challenging” with falling gas prices and production while the date nears for €100m bond interest repayments.
BLYTHE
The company is also in talks “on near-term liquidity and longer-term capital structure solutions” with holders of its senior secured bond as the waiver date of 29 September nears to repay interest.
As at 31 August 2023, IOG had £14.5m cash, of which £7.3m is restricted.
The month’s operations saw the Blythe H2 well gas rate decrease from 27.7 mmscf/d to 21.2 mmscf/d although operating efficiency was 96.9% (2023 YTD: 94.4%)
The planned one-week planned Bacton terminal shutdown, successfully completed in early August, resulted in a fall in production efficiency for the month to 77.5% (2023 YTD: 82.4%)
IOG is planning a Blythe H1 production trial to assess a sustainable gas rate and associated water rate to improve potential low-cost production.
NAILSWORTH & ELLAND
Adding to the company’s concerns, the North Sea Energy Transition will not extend the Nailsworth “tight gas” licences beyond their expiry dates, affecting the commercial potential of licence P039 (Elland).
Licences P2342 and P130 are due to expire on 30 September 2023 and 31 December 2023 respectively, with no impact on IOG’s net 2P reserves.
All three unconventional fields have been undergoing technical re-evaluation.
The company added it continued pre-development work on conventional discovered gas opportunities in the undeveloped southern and central clusters.