San Leon, the independent oil and gas production, development and exploration company focused on Nigeria, has disclosed updates in relation to the Proposed MLPL Reorganisation and the Further ELI Investments, details of which were set out in the Company’s AIM Admission Document published on 8 July 2022.

New Eroton Debt Facilities

In order to acquire additional interests in OML 18 and take its economic interest to 45% of OML 18, Eroton proposes to enter into new senior secured reserve-based lending facilities totaling US$750 million (New Eroton Debt Facilities), to be provided to Eroton by a lending consortium headed by Afreximbank.  The process of finalising the New Eroton Debt Facilities has continued during October 2022, and whilst nearing its conclusion, further additional time is needed to finalise the loan agreements and ancillary documentation.  Consequently, the condition relating to the New Eroton Debt Facilities being entered into, which had already been extended to 31 October 2022, has now been extended to 30 November 2022 by agreement with Midwestern.

In addition to the requirement to enter into the New Eroton Debt Facilities, the MLPL Reorganisation Agreement required the Sahara OML 18 Acquisition Agreement (as defined in the Admission Document) to be entered into by all parties by 30 September 2022, which was subsequently extended to 31 October 2022. The Sahara OML 18 Acquisition Agreement is not expected to be entered into until after the New Eroton Debt Facilities have been entered into and the funds are available, and therefore this date has now been further extended to 30 November 2022 by agreement with Midwestern.

San Leon US$50 million loan facility

As previously announced by the Company on 30 September 2022, whilst a loan facility of US$50.0 million has been made available to the Company by MM Capital Holding Limited for the purposes of funding its working capital requirements and financing the Further ELI Investments (as set out in the Admission Document), the Company has been discussing alternative financing on terms that are better aligned with the Company’s overall strategic and financing objectives. In this regard, progress has been made on securing alternative financing and the Board intends to finalise these discussions in the coming weeks with full loan documentation and drawdown of the funds thereafter.