Oil and gas company Angus Energy has allocated £0.5 million in a £7 million fundraising to source gravimetric and seismic data in west Devon in search of opportunities for geothermal projects, planned for the first half of 2023.
The mainly oil and gas company, whose fundraising is required mainly to fund work to reopen the Saltfleetby gas field, said in October that it was targeting steady growth through geothermal and energy storage, as well as by acquiring hydrocarbon assets. It said it will continue to invest in legacy oil and transition gas “as this will be important for at least the next decade”. It also said it planned to “build up its geothermal projects and expertise to launch a nationally significant programme without subsidy” and invest in gas, oil, carbon dioxide and battery storage, “as this is both well aligned with long-term policy and commercially profitable”.
Most of the £7 million fundraising is intended to cover cost and schedule overruns at Saltfleetby relating to changes to the plant design ((£0.75 million); higher steel, energy, materials and human respource costs (£0.9 million) and £3.3 million in hedge expenditure. The company said due to the late start of production from Saltfleetby, “some of the original hedged volumes due in Q3 2022 were closed and new hedges of an equivalent amount, but at much higher prices, were restruck in H1 2023. Whilst the Company had been seeking to defer this liability to include it within H1 2023′s commitments and has been in discussions with the hedge providers to that end, it has now been unable to agree this.”
This winter the company said progress at Saltfleetby had been slowed by the extremely cold weather, which resulted in surface equipment failures and logistical delays. It was compounded by nationwide strike action which affected crew and freight logistics.