SEAENERGY has won a lifeline after a potential bidder for its Return to Scene imaging business made a payment which the energy services group said would help fund it through May.
The Aberdeen-based firm, which emerged out of the Ramco Energy oil and gas business, said it has entered an exclusivity agreement with a preferred bidder for Return to Scene (R2S).
“Under the agreement, the Preferred Bidder has made a non-refundable payment which will help to fund the Group though May,” said SeaEnergy.
“The Preferred Bidder has indicated that it intends to acquire all aspects of the R2S business and it is planned for the disposal to be completed within a short timeframe.”
SeaEnergy did not provide details of the deal under discussion or the size of the payment received.
The company said directors anticipated the proceeds of the potential disposal, if received, would be sufficient to repay the group’s bank overdraft, nearly all of its secured debt and a proportion of amounts owing to unsecured creditors.
It noted there could be no guarantee that the potential disposal would be completed.
The group said any value for shareholders is likely to depend on it realising other assets.
Steve Remp, who led Ramco Energy on a pioneering hunt for oil behind the former Iron Curtain, is the biggest shareholder in SeaEnergy.
SeaEnergy's assets include a stake in the Ireland-focused Lansdowne Oil & Gas business and royalty interests in two undeveloped UK fields.
Aim-listed SeaEnergy said shares in the group remain suspended from trading pending clarification of the financial position.
SeaEnergy noted then that trading in Landowne Oil & Gas shares had been suspended on 13 April meaning it was unlikely the company could currently raise funds through the disposal of its 18.67 per cent interest in that business.
Trading in shares in Lansdowne Oil & Gas was suspended pending clarification of the company’s financial position.
The developments at SeaEnergy highlight the challenges posed for oil services firms by the slump in the crude price since 2014.
In March SeaEnergy said the fall in the crude price had resulted in the deferral or cancellation of many projects for R2S, which produces 360 degree images of offshore installations.
The company noted trading conditions had deteriorated since the start of the year, following the renewed fall in the crude price in the second half of 2015.
SeaEnergy said it had been left generating losses in spite of making significant cost reductions and exiting its marine and ship management activities.
The company had moved into these areas and acquired R2S for an initial £5m under a plan to develop an offshore services business.
The group sold its SeaEnergy Renewables windfarm investment business to Repsol for £38m in 2011.
Ramco Energy made its name in the 1990s with a stake in the huge ACG fields in Azerbaijan.
The company suffered hefty losses after reinvesting the proceeds from the sale of its ACG stake in the Seven Heads project in the Celtic Sea. Output plunged soon after the field went onstream in December 2003.
Mr Remp retired from the group in 2012 but has 4.2m shares in SeaEnergy, around 7.5 per cent of the total.
Shares in SeaEnergy were suspended at 2.38p. They traded at 41p in April 2014.
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