San Leon, the independent oil and gas production, development and exploration company focused on Nigeria, notes the comments in today's Irish press about a petition by Ocean Pearl Maritime to wind up one of its subsidiaries, San Leon ELI Limited. 

On 10 October 2023, San Leon announced amongst other matters its proposal to acquire a further 13.5 per cent. of Energy Link Infrastructure (Malta) Limited's ("ELI") existing shares from Ocean Pearl for US$12 million. This proposal was part of wider series of investments in ELI which, when completed, will make San Leon the majority shareholder in ELI. Furthermore, this proposal had been successfully negotiated down from the indicative price of US$15 million as set out in the Company's admission document published in July 2022.

It is self-evident that the acquisition from Ocean Pearl was conditional on completion of San Leon's refinancing.  Furthermore, as all shares in ELI are pledged to ELI's senior lender, completion of any transfer of shares requires the consent of the lender.  The agreement with Ocean Pearl requires the parties to work together to secure that consent. However, to date, Ocean Pearl has made no offer or representations in this regard. Instead, Ocean Pearl has lodged a petition for the winding up of San Leon ELI Limited, which is the member of the San Leon group that contracted with Ocean Pearl.

San Leon considers the petition to be both aggressive and vexatious in nature. The directors of the Company believe that it will have no bearing on the speed at which funding can be put in place and is arguably detrimental to Ocean Pearl's own interests if prospective funding partners object to Ocean Pearl's approach. San Leon has strongly advised Ocean Pearl to withdraw its petition and instead work constructively with the Company towards an expedient completion of the acquisition of its 13.5 per cent interest in ELI. If Ocean Pearl does not withdraw its winding up petition, then San Leon has retained legal advisers to robustly defend and overturn the petition. 

KeyFacts Energy: San Leon Nigeria country profile