Petroleum Africa
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Thursday, March 12, 2015
Horn Petroleum has launched a new corporate strategy to take advantage of the current downturn in oil prices and intends to aggressively pursue onshore and shallow-water upstream oil opportunities in Africa. In line with this refocused effort, it intends to change its name to Africa Energy Corp. Africa Energy will continue to be within the Lundin Group of companies and maintain its listing on the TSX Venture Exchange. The name change was effective on March 12 and, effective at market open on March 12, the company’s common shares will trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the new symbol AFE.V.
Along with the new focus and name change the company has a few personnel changes; the first being Jan Maier joining the management team as VP – Exploration. Maier has over 32 years’ experience in African new venture exploration with his most significant contributions coming under his tenure at the former Energy Africa and Tullow Oil.
Additionally, three new board members were elected including John Bentley, previously the CEO for Energy Africa; Adrian Nel, previously the Technical Director for Energy Africa; and Ashley Heppenstall, currently the CEO for Lundin Petroleum. Ian Gibbs, currently the CFO of Africa Oil, will continue to serve as a director while Randy Neely and Wojtek Wodziki have resigned from the board.
Africa Energy will be managed from a new office in Cape Town, which will initially focus on opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa. President and CEO of Africa Energy, James Phillips, will relocate to Cape Town effective in April 2015 to oversee the new company direction. Keith Hill, currently the President and CEO for Africa Oil Corp. will continue as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Africa Energy.
These new initiatives will take funding and to finance them the company is also proposing to raise $15 million in new equity through a non-brokered private placement of new shares. The private placement will be effected on a reasonable commercial basis at a price per share to be determined through a book building process. A 5% finder’s fee may be paid on all or a portion of the private placement and the shares sold in the offering will be subject to a hold period of four months plus one day. Completion of the offering will be subject to regulatory approval, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, and certain other customary conditions including, but not limited to, execution of subscription agreements between the company and the subscribers. The offering is expected to close on or before March 20 or such other dates as the company and the finders may agree.
James Phillips, President and CEO for Africa Energy commented, “I’m thrilled to bring Jan Maier into our rebranded and refocused company. I’ve known Jan for 15 years and have always been impressed with his deep knowledge of African geology and new venture opportunities. This is an opportunity-rich period in the oil industry for acquisitions, mergers, farm-ins and directly negotiated deals with various African governments with limited competition, very similar to the conditions in late 2008 and 2009 when we built our extensive East African acreage position in Africa Oil. While the focus will be on building value through the exploration drill bit, we will also consider acquiring producing properties at distressed prices to help fund future exploration.”
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