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Tuesday, June 3, 2014
WHL Energy Ltd. revealed that it has elected to pay out a trade finance agreement entered into with Bergen Global Opportunity Fund V, LLC. Under the Agreement announced to the ASX, the Fund provided a one-off loan of $2.7 million to the company. The funds were used to convert into cash the Tap Oil Seismic Option and provided WHL Energy’s portion of the funding for the La Bella 3D seismic acquisition program it successfully completed in December.
Bergen paid the $2.7 million to WHL Energy as a lump-sum, which was repayable as a 12% p.a. principal and interest loan in cash, with certain share conversion rights, during the 15 months ending March 31, 2015, with a clause allowing for the loan to be repaid early. Following the recent successful signing of an agreement to farm-out a 75 % interest in WHL Energy’s Seychelles project to Ophir Energy and the receipt of an initial payment of $4 million for the recovery of past costs, the company stated it was in a much stronger financial and structural position and has elected to take up the option to pay-out the remaining $2.886 million to close the trade finance agreement early.
Commenting on the decision to complete the loan early, WHL Energy MD, David Rowbottam said: “WHL Energy is a far stronger company now compared to where we were when we elected to take up the strategic funding agreement with Bergen. We now have quality farm-out JVs with AWE and Tap Oil in Australia and Ophir Energy in the Seychelles, have received an initial Seychelles past costs payment, have successfully completed the La Bella 3D seismic survey and are now receiving quality information from that seismic survey, are about to participate in a major 3D seismic survey in the Seychelles and have restructured our Board.
“As a result of these successes and the obvious potential of our key projects, we are in a much stronger position financially and structurally. This has resulted in the company receiving increased interest from a range of financial institutions and we believe it is strategically prudent to restructure this short term debt. We thank Eugene Tablis and Bergen for their support.”
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