Kuwait Energy Seeks London Listing, Hopes For $1B Valuation

Exploration and production company Kuwait Energy is working with Bank of America on an initial public offering in London that could value the Middle East-focused group at US$1 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, quoting people in the know.

Numis Corp is also helping Kuwait Energy with the possible IPO, which could take place as soon as the first half of this year. Still, no final decisions have been made yet, Bloomberg’s sources said.  

Kuwait Energy has reported average daily working interest production for 2016 at 24,573 boepd, down by 1.7 percent on the year, mostly due to a natural decline of production in Egypt and suspension of output in Yemen. The company is due to report financials for 2016 in April, while its latest income statement, as of September 30, 2016, showed a loss of US$12.4 million for the nine months through September, compared to a profit of US$15.5 million for the same period in 2015.

Kuwait Energy - which has exploration, production and development assets in Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Kuwait and Oman – could be one of the big listings in London after the oil price crash in 2014.

Nigeria’s Seplat Petroleum Development Company was one of the last sizeable IPOs in London before the price of oil tumbled. In April 2014, Seplat Petroleum Development raised US$535 million with IPO on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.  

Related: Saudi King Goes East In Search Of Friends And Cash

More recently, US conventional gas and oil producer Diversified Gas & Oil PLC raised US$50 million last month when it started trading on London’s junior AIM market.    

With the recovery of the oil prices from early 2016 lows, more companies are likely to look to listings as a means of raising capital. On the other side of the Atlantic, for example, as many as 40 oil and gas companies could launch IPOs this year, as rising oil prices spark interest in new drilling, according to Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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