All eyes on financing

Rockhopper’s (RKH) half year results indicate that it (and Premier Oil, PMO) are making progress in moving Sea Lion towards FID, particularly with regard to financing the development. Discussions have started on the structure of senior debt with UK export financing (making up a proposed $800m). Non-binding proposals have been received for a significant proportion of the planned $400m vendor financing. These components would leave just $300m of equity to be provided to get the project to first oil, which should be manageable for the partners and negate the need for a farm-down. Elsewhere, the sale of Civita in Italy has streamlined its production business, which now covers a much smaller G&A bill. We intend to update our modelling and valuation in the coming days (not least to account for our new lower oil price assumption), for the moment leaving our NAV at 72p/share.