Austral Pacific Secures Financing & Completes Arrowhead Acquisition
December 21 2006 - 5:49PM
PR Newswire (US)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Austral
Pacific Energy Ltd. (TSX-V: APX; NZSX: APX; Amex: AEN) Austral
Pacific Energy Ltd ("Austral Pacific") announced today that,
through its wholly-owned subsidiary Austral Pacific Energy (NZ)
Limited, it has secured a US$23 million loan facility and that it
has completed the acquisition of Arrowhead Energy Limited
("Arrowhead"). The loan facility is for a term of 4 years at
commercial lending rates. The loan is being arranged and
underwritten by Investec Bank (Australia) Limited. Under the terms
of the loan, Austral Pacific has agreed, subject to stock exchange
approvals expected in the ordinary course, to issue Investec 2.5
million common share purchase warrants. The warrants will be
exercisable for 24 months at a price of US$2.11 per common share.
McDouall Stuart Corporate Finance Limited and Simpson Grierson
acted as financial and legal advisors to Austral Pacific. The
principal purposes of the loan facility are to fund the acquisition
of Arrowhead and to meet ongoing costs associated with the
development of the Cheal oil field. In an earlier release dated
11th October 2006, Austral Pacific announced that it had signed a
heads of agreement to acquire all the shares of Arrowhead, a small,
privately held, New Zealand oil and gas exploration and production
company, for net NZ$17 million (US$11.0 million). Austral Pacific
now confirms that this acquisition has been completed. Austral
Pacific Chief Executive Officer Rick Webber said, "I am delighted
to be able to make this announcement today. Securing the loan
facility with Investec represents another milestone for our
company. Not only does it provide funding for the completion of the
Arrowhead deal, but it also means that we are fully funded through
to the completion of the Cheal oil field development in the second
quarter of 2007." Mr. Webber noted that the Arrowhead acquisition
was of strategic importance to the company. "Arrowhead Energy
Limited is now a wholly-owned subsidiary. The upshot is that
Austral Pacific's share in the cornerstone Cheal oil field
development has risen from 36.5 per cent to 69.5 per cent while our
share in the Kahili gas/condensate field has risen from 60 per cent
to 85 per cent. This acquisition effectively doubles the resource
base of the Company leading to an overall strengthening of the
Company's value and balance sheet going forward." Web site:
http://www.austral-pacific.com/ Email: Phone: Rick Webber, CEO +64
(4) 495 0880 None of the Exchanges upon which Austral Pacific's
securities trade have approved or disapproved the contents hereof.
This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable
legislation. Other than statements of historical fact, all
statements in this release addressing future production, reserve
potential, exploration and development activities and other
contingencies are forward-looking statements. Although management
believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking
statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are
not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or
developments may differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements, due to factors such as market prices,
exploration and development successes, continued availability of
capital and financing, and general economic, market, political or
business conditions. See our public filings at
http://www.sedar.com/ and
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm for further
information. DATASOURCE: Austral Pacific Energy Ltd. CONTACT: Rick
Webber, CEO of Austral Pacific, +64 (4) 495 0880, or Web site:
http://www.austral-pacific.com/
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