Maurel & Prom has suffered more than others from the financial crisis that broke in 2008.
In just a few months, the theoretical lines of credit available to the company declined from $ 800 m to nothing. Nevertheless, we succeeded in selling our Colombian assets under acceptable conditions, mitigating the financial constraints. That allowed us to reassure the markets and renew a portion of the OCEANE coming due in January 2010. This necessary action took a very high toll in terms of brokerage fees and interest rates.
We might add that the exploratory drilling campaigns yielded disappointing immediate results until the OMOC-N-1 and OMGW-1 wells, which were operable immediately, were successfully brought into operation. In effect, they allowed us to confirm the existence of a new type of reservoir that had already been discovered at Omko: the Kissenda, which appears to be present in abundance on our permit. Their development, which will use the Onal facilities, will require modest investment.
Moreover, after 10 years of fruitless attempts, agreements on Nigeria opened the door to rapid and very signifi cant development in a major oil-producing company with high-quality partners.
These two successes will allow the Group to signifi cantly increase its reserves in the very near future. Other sources: Banio (Gabon), Congo, Tanzania and South America will then enhance our new flows in 2010. This financial year will see a gradual decline in high-risk exploratory efforts in favour of assessment-delineation and development activities.
This reorientation, which follows on the work completed in 2008 and 2009, will give the Maurel & Prom stock a less risky profile, consistent with an activity that is more easily predictable.
In only a few years, the various phases of development of Maurel & Prom have allowed us to accumulate a little over €1 billion in shareholders’ equity; this now allows us to prioritise by value the various regions we have acquired and to which we have dedicated so much effort in recent years.
Jean-François Hénin
Chairman of the Board of Directors.
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