LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Oil and gas exploration company Bahamas Petroleum Company updated the market on its activities on Tuesday, including a licence extension to its southern licences.
The AIM-traded firm said that in June 2015, the Government of The Bahamas renewed its four southern licences for a second three year exploration term.

It said its principal work obligation under the renewal was to commence activity on an initial exploration well by April 2017.

The Government of the Bahamas extended the time for the performance of the obligations and requirements of BPC under its licence renewals for a further period of 12 months on Tuesday, the company's board confirmed, as applies to its four co-joined southern licences.

"The impact of [this] is that the company will now not be obliged to commence activity on an initial exploration well until April 2018," its board said in a statement.

Bahamas Petroleum said it was singularly focussed on commencing responsible and safe drilling operations as soon as possible, and to that end remained in advanced discussions with various potential funding and operating partners.

"The company considers that the licence extension provided by the government will be an important consideration in further advancing these discussions."

Bahamas Petroleum closed the end of 2016 with a freely available cash balance of approximately $1m and a reserved cash position of an additional $0.5m, retained by the company's bank in the form of a performance bond issued in 2015 as part of the licence renewal, which will revert to the company during 2017.

The company confirmed it satisfied the relevant obligations the bond secured.

"The company has previously announced various cost saving measures, including that the board and senior management have agreed to certain fee and remuneration deferrals, so as to preserve cash resources through any extended farm-out process.

"These cost saving measures and deferrals will continue until such time as future funding is secured."

As such, Bahamas Petroleum said its ongoing overheads were minimised, and the board considered the company held sufficient financial resources to take it through the conclusion of the farm out process.

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE