Urals Energy: Arctic Oil Purchase Loan Repaid Plus New Credit Open

The Board of Urals Energy PCL, the independent exploration and production company with operations in Russia, announces that further to the Company’s announcement on 23 August 2016, the loan provided by Kamchatcomagroprombank (“KKAPB”) for the acquisition of Arctic Oil Company Limited has now been repaid in full.

Following the repayment of the Arctic Oil Company loan, the Company’s subsidiary JSC Arcticneft entered into a new short-term loan finance arrangement with KKAPB. KKAPB is a bank in which Mr Shvets, the shareholder of Adler SA, the Company’s largest shareholder, is a board member and shareholder with 15.4% of KKAPB’s issued share capital.

The principal terms of the new KKAPB loan are as follows:

Principal: Russian Rouble 40 million (approximately US$660,000)
Term: 31 August 2017
Interest margin over Central Bank Rate: 5%, equivalent to a total of 15% on an annualised basis
Security: part of the crude oil produced by Arcticneft

The proceeds of this new KKAPB loan will be used by the Group for the general working capital financing of Arcticneft.

Based on the data available from the Central bank of the Russian Federation, the Board believes that the terms of the new KKAPB loan compare favourably with potential terms from other Russian banks, as credit remains generally difficult to obtain in Russia.

Additionally, the Group is approaching the full repayment of the final tranche of one of its loan facilities with OJSC Sberbank of Russia (“Sberbank”), which was orignally put in place in 2015 (as announced on 30 June 2015). Following the full repayment of the 2015 Sberbank facility, the Group will have a single revolving finance arrangement in place with Sberbank (as originally announced on 20 September 2016). Further announcements will be made as appropriate.