Petrel remains at loggerheads with French investors

Irish oil and gas explorer Petrel Resources remains at loggerheads with its French investors over the sale of shares in the company.

Publishing its financial results for last year, which show it made a pre-tax loss of €450,000 in 2020 down from nearly €2 million in 2019, Petrel said no progress had been made in its dispute with the Paris-based Tamraz group.

The company, which has interests in offshore Ireland, Iraq and Ghana, last year obtained a High Court order blocking a trio of investors , known as the Tamraz group, from selling shares in the Irish company.

Shares

The trio held 100 million Petrel shares directly and through a company, and had agreed not to sell them before last August under the terms of an investment deal concluded in November 2019, which would have seen Tamraz take a 51 per cent stake in the group.

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Petrel maintains that it found in January that they had sold shares in breach of this agreement.

"The stalemate continues over the ownership of 32 million Petrel shares. These shares are subject to a high court injunction on their sale," Petrel chairman John Teeling said.

“Despite numerous and ongoing discussions with the original buyers of the shares no progress has been made,” he said.

“The original buyers, a French based group very experienced in resources, are either unwilling or unable to clarify ownership and to give the undertaking necessary to lift the injunction,” Mr Teeling said.

“ The company is committed to and actively involved in attempting to find a solution. Proposals to date lack clarity on title and funding and do not address the ownership of 32 million shares,” he said.