Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd (TSX-V:RECO, OTCQX:RECAF) CEO Brian Reinsborough talked with Proactive about the successful closing of a C$19 million offering, significantly upsized from the initial C$10 million target due to strong investor demand.
Reinsborough emphasized that the raise reflects confidence in the company’s renewed strategy and leadership, with support coming from long-time shareholders, management, directors, and institutional investors, including partner BW Energy.
He detailed the deployment plans for the funds, noting that preparations are underway for the drilling of the Kavango West 1X well.
Proactive: All right, welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now is Brian Reinsborough. He is the CEO of Reconnaissance Energy Africa, or ReconAfrica if you like. Brian, good to see you again. How are you?
Brian Reinsborough: Doing wonderful. Thanks for having me on once again.
Yeah. So the company has some news that you've closed a $19 million offering, and this was upsized from what you announced previously. So, take us through it. Obviously, some pretty strong support for the company and what you're doing.
Oh, absolutely. We're delighted by this raise. As you know, we went out with a $10 million raise and the demand was quite high. So we ended up upsizing and filling the allotment at just under $19 million Canadian. So strong interest, and it’s really a testament to the company’s strategy, the team we have, and our ability to execute on what we say. So I am super pleased to announce — time to drill a well.
You were getting some backing from a lot of people that you're familiar with already, and that’s really a positive — as you mentioned, that backing from management, but also from people interested within the company really coming forward.
Yeah, absolutely. And it came from all sources. Of course, management, board directors are in there. Our partner BW Energy also contributed. But we also, as with our two previous raises last year, this was an institutionally-led fundraise, which is what I really like to see — with a global footprint. So in aggregate, our shareholders who were with us for a long time stepped up. They obviously liked the new team and the new strategy and what we're doing. And the new institutions who looked at us really liked the story as well. So in a very tough market to raise exploration money, this was a great success on Recon’s behalf.
So let's talk about where it's going. You mentioned time to drill a well. So let’s let everyone in on what the plan is moving forward.
Sure. Our prospect we've talked about so many times — previously called Prospect I — we renamed it to Kavango West 1X. That well is progressing. We are actually in the early stages of moving the rig and some services across to the new location right now. The road’s constructed, the pad’s being constructed. We will start moving around this weekend. It’ll take notionally about a month, and we hope to spud the well the latter part of July. Our team is on the ground and has done just an excellent job with integrating and communicating with the communities and making sure everything goes smoothly there. The rig is in great shape. We drilled that first well late last year — Naingopo — and we learned a lot from that well operationally. We're transferring all those learnings into this Kavango West well. I have great hopes operationally to get this done, hopefully below budget. We’ll see what the outcome is, but we’re really excited with Kavango West.
And just so people understand about that particular area and where you are — the activity there and what's happening around you also.
Yeah. Absolutely. We’re in the very northern part of Namibia. This well is about 20 kilometres north of the Naingopo well, and we’re about 40 kilometres south of the Angola border. This will be the second well in the Damara Fold Belt. The first one was Naingopo — we learned a lot from it technically, and we had evidence of oil. That’s a really good step when you try to open up these new plays. The findings from Naingopo pointed us toward drilling Kavango West next. We like this structure — it’s a very large structure, about 20 kilometres long and about five kilometres wide. We’re going to drill down to about 3,800 metres, and we expect to penetrate almost 1,500 metres of the main reservoir section called the Otavi carbonate. So that’s a big section to go through. We like the seismic — the way it looks here tells a lot about the geology. So we think we have a great shot on goal with Kavango West.
There are a lot of eyes on this well — in the investment community, our shareholders are really excited, and so is the industry. They see the potential. We have a lot of acreage locked up — six million acres on the Namibian side, about 19 prospects in the Damara Fold Belt on our southern side. And if you recall, we signed the MOU just a couple of months ago for another five million acres contiguously on the Angola side. We feel this extends into Angola as well. So, a really important well in some regards.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style