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CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 28, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- High Arctic Energy Services Inc. (TSX: HWO) "High Arctic" or the "Corporation” provides an update on the contemplated reorganization of the Corporation, including the associated tax efficient $38.2 million return of capital, the Papua New Guinea focused business spin-out to shareholders, refocus of the Canadian business and an update on its Papua New Guinea (“PNG”) operations.
The Corporation has received feedback from shareholders and is working with its advisors on the reorganization plan to incorporate key elements of the shareholder feedback. The High Arctic board has reserved its final decision to proceed with the reorganization until these matters and ongoing strategic review have been addressed to their satisfaction, requisite regulatory approvals have been received, and the materials are ready to present to shareholders.
The Corporation cautions readers that there is no certainty that the reorganization will proceed in the format previously announced, or at all.
In PNG, Rig 103 has continued to operate reliably since returning to work and in the process our crews have passed through 7 years and 3.5 million work hours of recordable incident free operations. Activity is nearing the halfway point of the four currently committed wells for our primary customer, under the three-year operations and management contracts that mature in August 2025.
High Arctic observes that the Papua-LNG partners have pushed back guidance for the target final investment decision on the project website https://papualng.com.pg/ to “early 2024”. We have also observed that the project planning involves the creation of road access to the development well sites and as a result will likely not specifically require heli-portable drilling rigs. High Arctic was involved in drilling four of the Antelope field appraisal wells with our heli-portable drilling rigs. While High Arctic has specialist PNG drilling knowledge that we strongly believe is critical to successful well delivery, there is no guarantee that our rigs will be deemed suitable for, or that we will be contracted to conduct the Papua-LNG development drilling at the Elk / Antelope fields.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. When used in this document, the words “may”, “would”, “could”, “will”, “intend”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “seek”, “propose”, “estimate”, “expect”, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the Corporation’s current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause the Corporation’s actual results, performance or achievements to vary from those described in this press release.