Highlands falls off after issuing new placements

Natural resources company, Highlands announced a placing of 7.8m new ordinary shares at 0.20p per share as part of an effort raise £1.56m.

The net proceeds of the placing would be used to allow the company to enlarge its operations currently underway along the Niobrara formation in its East Denver oil and gas project.

Highlands had raised funds for the project already on 6 July but upgraded its plans to include an extra two wells on 11 August after receipt of new geological data.

The 3,840 acre project in Araphoe County, Colorado was envisioned by directors to hold as many as 24 wells, and lists its most conservative barrels of oil equivalent per well as 992 per month.

Highlands' chairman and chief executive Robert Price said, "Today's over-subscribed Placing enables Highlands to execute an exciting operations programme at East Denver with larger scale and significantly enhanced efficiency. The two-well approach to drilling and hydraulic fracturing minimizes equipment down-time and equipment mobilizations, thereby achieving important savings in both costs and time."

As of 1110 BST, shares had fallen off 10.38% to 22.18p.