Afren has agreed terms and conditions and mandated BNP Paribas and VTB Capital to arrange an up to US$200 million corporate credit facility. The Company reported cash at bank of US$320.4 million as at 30 June 2011, US$215 million of which is available for acquisitions. The Company also expects to generate significant free cash flow from its ongoing production activities. In addition the Company intends to undertake a placing of new ordinary shares (the "Placing Shares"), representing up to approximately 8.5 per cent of Afren's issued ordinary share capital immediately prior to the Placing, with institutional and other qualifying investors
Technical description of the Barda Rash PSC and Ain Sifni PSC
Location map - a contiguous acreage position
Regional overview - the Kurdistan region of Iraq
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq represents an attractive upstream opportunity to Afren. Three oil fields are already producing in the region, with crude offtake occurring both domestically and increasingly via export to the international market. Encouragingly in June 2011 oil exports from the region were reported at 175,000 bopd, up from 75,000 bopd in February, with payment for oil exports at the Tawke field in February and March also reported by the operator
Whilst already proven to be a prolific hydrocarbon province, the region still remains relatively under-explored with only a small number of mapped prospects having been drilled to date. 28 exploration wells have been drilled in the region since 2006, of which 20 have been reported as discoveries yielding an estimated 5,800 mmboe of gross recoverable reserves (average success rate 71 per cent. and discovery rate of 207 mmboe per well). Yet to find resource estimates for the region are of a globally significant scale and range from 40 billion to 70 billion barrels.
Independent resource estimate
RPS Energy (RPS) has undertaken an independent assessment of contingent and prospective resources at the Barda Rash PSC and Ain Sifni PSC for Afren.
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