Pantheon Resources, the AIM-quoted oil and gas exploration company with projects located adjacent to transportation and pipeline infrastructure on the prolific Alaska North Slope, announced today that further to its announcement on 19 January 2021, Pantheon has now received formal approval from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Borealis Alaska LLC ("Borealis"). Borealis owns a 10.8% working interest in each of the 16 leases in the Talitha Unit and thus the completion of this transaction increases Pantheon's working interest in the Talitha Unit from 89.2% to 100% (with Pantheon's net revenue interest increasing from 77.05% to 86.0%). In consideration for the acquisition, Pantheon will issue to the Vendor, Otto Energy Alaska LLC (a 100% owned subsidiary of Otto Energy Ltd) 14,272,592 ordinary fully paid shares which are subject to a lock-up until 30 June 2021.

Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the admission to trading of the 14,272,592 new Ordinary Shares, which is expected at 8.00 am on 26 March 2021.

The Company's enlarged issued share capital admitted to trading on AIM immediately following Admission will consist of 629,368,196 Voting Ordinary Shares and 63,890,478 Non-Voting Shares. The aforementioned figure of 629,368,196 Voting Ordinary Shares may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Pantheon under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

Update on Talitha #A

The Company has successfully completed the sidetrack to the Kuparuk section of the Talitha #A well, have set a liner and perforated the Kuparuk. Testing operations are expected to commence shortly. The Company will provide an update on completion of the initial phase of testing operations which is expected to be early next week. As previously announced, oil has been encountered in the Kuparuk Formation which is a major regional producer on the Alaska North Slope and a successful test would represent a significant event for Pantheon.

Jay Cheatham, CEO of Pantheon Resources, said: 
"We are extremely pleased to complete this transaction announced in January, especially considering the drilling results over the past weeks. Following completion, Pantheon will now have a 100% working interest in not only Talitha, but all of its Alaska North Slope projects which collectively span some 160,000 contiguous acres, over 90% of which is covered by proprietary 3D seismic. We welcome Otto as a shareholder where they can continue to enjoy exposure to the Talitha project as well as to the remainder of our Alaska North Slope portfolio."  

"Having a 100% working interest across all our major projects puts us in a stronger position to pursue a farm down (or sell down) in certain projects enabling us to continue funding our operations without necessarily relying on raising further equity."

"We continue to remain cautiously optimistic for the testing operations in the Kuparuk at Talitha, which is the deepest of five separate horizons and is therefore the first to test. Pre-test analysis has been extremely encouraging, however as always, we caution that we cannot make any definitive assessments until the conclusion of testing operations. All of the horizons encountered oil and offer multi hundred million barrel potential, if successful. As we have previously indicated, these zones combined have been estimated by management to potentially contain over a billion barrels of recoverable oil in a successful case in the Talitha structure, which is particularly exciting. We look forward to informing shareholders of the results of testing once available."

KeyFacts Energy: Pantheon US Alaska profile