EBRD becomes shareholder in Canada’s Bankers Petroleum

TIRANA, July 24ؔhe European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has become a shareholder in Canadian oil and gas company, Bankers Petroleum, whose main business is in Albania, the company said on Friday.
EBRD has exercised its entire warrant holdings of 8.0 million warrants, issued on May 8 at a price of Canadian dollars (0.972 euro) per share, generating proceeds of Canadian dollars $12.0 million, Bankers Petroleum said in a statement.
The warrants were granted to EBRD along with a similar amount to the International Finance Corporation, exercised on July 10, as part of a $110 million credit facility, the statement said. After the transaction, Bankers Petroleum has 223,886,772 common shares outstanding, 13,455,892 options to purchase common shares and 9,713,376 common share purchase warrants.
Last year the company started a two-year $370 million investment program aiming to develop its two oilfields in Albania. The program is financed with the $110 million loan from EBRD and IFC.
Bankers Petroleum is an oil and gas exploration and production company which drills Albania’s onshore Patos Marinze and Kucova heavy oilfields and fields in the northern and central regions of the United States and in Canada.
Bankers Petroleum revenue from operations in Albania in 2008 rose by 61.7% to $87.4 million, as the active wells rose by 49 to 213.