Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd (LON:FOG, CVE:FO) is to receive C$600,000 from the exercise of share option held by chief executive Philip O’Quigley.
The Falcon boss is exercising 6mln options which were due to expire at the end of April, and he pays a strike price of ten Canadian cents per share.
Concurrently, a private placing has been arranged for O’Quigley to sell some 4.5mln of the newly issued shares to a single private shareholder, at a price of 14.5p (23.7 Canadian cents), with the proceeds of the shale sale covering the costs of the option exercise and related tax.
More insights to massive discovery in Australia’s Northern Territory
Falcon soars after Aussie partner points to huge gas potential
Everybody is on the Falcon Oil & Gas Plc bandwagon - Zak Mir
O’Quigley essentially doubles his equity holding in the company, to just over 3mln shares, as a result of the transactions.
The options were granted to O’Quigley in 2012 when he joined the company as chief executive - he also owns options to take a further 14mln shares.
Falcon shares are up some 180% following the release of a major discovery and resource report for its breakthrough Australian shale project, and with financial results due at the end of April it is about to enter a ‘close period’ (at which point director share dealing would not be allowed).
Last Wednesday, citing figures produced by Origin Energy, its partner in and operator of 16,000-square kilometres of licences, the gross best estimate of gas in place is put at a world-class 496 trillion cubic feet (TCF).
Converting that to oil equivalent, it stacks up to 82bn barrels of the black stuff.