Stephen Bizzell is a director of Armour. 

 

Armour announced last week it would split its Queensland and Northern Territory assets in two, and form a new company to list on the Australian Securities Exchange that would only focus on its Top End acreage.

 

It will be called McArthur Oil & Gas. Money will also go to exploration costs, including work tied to its recent PRL applications. 

 

Armour's remaining Northern Territory acreage is concentrated in the McArthur Basin, after it spun off a large portion to Santos in recent months, giving it cash to pay down a portion of debt. Twelve months ago debt was $62 million; it is now $43 million. 

 

The Queensland Surat assets, including the producing Kincora gas plant, remain with Armour. Armour will also spend some of the new cash on well interventions at Kincora, and general working capital. 

 

It has issued $8.8 million of new shares to private and institutional investors, with attaching options and $2.7 million of conditional placement with attaching options that will be subject to shareholder approval. 

 

The issue price was 3.5c each, a 12.5% discount to its last traded price of 4c per share, and a 10.2% discount to the 15-day VWAP. All new shares rank equally with existing shares. 

 

For each four new shares, holders receive a free attaching option exercisable at 5c each and expiring February 29, 2024. 

 

CEO Brad Lingo, who has been on a restructuring and sale campaign since he joined last year via Oilex's sale of CoEra to the company, called it a "very good result". 

 

"There has been a great deal of interest in the proposed IPO of McArthur Oil & Gas and investors positioning themselves to participate in and support the demerger." 

 

Armour is down 5% today to 3cps. It has a market cap of $50.3 million.