Soco Intl successfully places 7.2 mln shares, raising £102 million

FTSE250 oil company Soco international (LSE: SIA) has raised £102 million through the issue of 7,234,347 new ordinary shares to institutional investors, at a price of 1410p per new share. The placing shares represent’s an increase of approximately 9.6% in SOCO's existing share capital.
The company had announced the placing early this morning. Soco plans to use the proceeds to help bring 50,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) on-stream in Vietnam by mid-2011 and fund a new high-impact exploration project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa) and Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), targeting 700 million barrels of potential recoverable reserves.
The admission of the new shares is expected to be completed on the 25 January 2010.
“We are now moving into the appraisal stage on Block 16-1 offshore Vietnam, which could generate production of a 100,000 bopd. Within Africa we are at the early stages of exploring a potentially prolific asset base”, Soco chief executive Ed Story said, “[the] placing gives us the financial flexibility to exploit fully our asset base whilst meeting all of our mid-term financial commitments.”

The exploration programme includes a 12 month drilling campaign in the Cuu Long Basin offshore Vietnam, to appraise and prove up significant additional reserves. A total of five high impact exploration wells will be drilled in the Congo. Up to three exploration wells are planned for the Nganzi Block onshore the Democratic Republic of Congo and two exploration wells in the offshore Congo Basin.  Total capital expenditure for 2010 is projected to be in the order of US$185 million.  http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/12430/soco-intl-successfully-places-72-mln-shares-raising-102-million-12430.html