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Westmount makes investment in Israel's Ratio Petroleum
Westmount Energy has made market purchases of 1,200,000 participating share units in Ratio Petroleum Energy, it announced on Friday, for an average price of ILS 0.974 per unit, starting on 25 January and completing on 31 May.
The AIM-traded firm said total consideration, including transaction costs, of ILS 1,187,068 (£248,406) had been funded from its existing cash resources.
It described Ratio Petroleum as an oil and gas exploration company focused on the development and production of international hydrocarbon assets.
The company completed its IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in January last year, and currently held assets in Guyana, Suriname, Malta, Philippines and Ireland.
In Guyana, Ratio Petroleum holds a 25% carried interest in the Kaieteur Block, located adjacent to and in the same geologic basin as the Stabroek Block which had delivered seven "substantial" oil discoveries since 2015, with reported discovered recoverable resources in excess of 3.2 billion oil-equivalent barrels to date.
ExxonMobil, which is the operator of both blocks, acquired a 5700 square kilometre 3D seismic survey on the Kaieteur Block in 2016, and that dataset was currently undergoing processing and interpretation with a view to evaluation of a future drilling program.
As a result of the purchases, Westmount now held approximately 1% of Ratio Petroleum's participating share units.
The board said the investment was consistent with its strategy of seeking exposure to opportunities in the prolific Guyana-Suriname Basin, which it considered to be a "major" emerging hydrocarbon province.
"For the 2017 financial year, Ratio Petroleum recorded a loss before tax of ILS 8.89m and had total assets of ILS 105.07m," the Westmount board said in its statement.