Royal Helium (RHC.V) and Imperial Helium (IHC.V) celebrated today the close of their previously announced plan of arrangement.
As a result of the deal, Royal Helium acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares in Imperial in exchange for common shares in Royal at the rate of 0.614 Royal common shares for each Imperial common share.
Imperial shareholders approved the plan and its terms during a special shareholder meeting on July 12, 2022, and the Supreme Court of British Columbia assented the transaction on July 15, 2022.
Shares in Imperial are expected to be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange within a few trading days in accordance with the rules and policies of the exchange.
As part of the arrangement, Imperial issued 4.44 million common shares to Cronin Services prior to closing to reduce Imperial’s outstanding royalty obligations.
The Royal Helium board of directors added one member from Imperial’s board, Samuel Kyler Hardy, following the arrangement’s closure.
Andrew Davidson, president and CEO of Royal, commented, “We are very happy to have this transaction completed and we thank the shareholders of Imperial for voting in favour by such an overwhelming margin. With the transaction completed, we can now shift our full focus to commercializing the Climax and now Steveville helium fields.”
The transaction closure adds near-production helium assets to Royal’s portfolio of more than 1.0 million acres of prospective helium land in southwestern and south-east Saskatchewan that Royal controls.
Back at the end of March, Imperial announced that its flagship Steveville Asset located in Alberta, had confirmed raw gas deliverability of 10-15 MMcf/d from the company’s first two wells, IHC-Steveville-2 and IHC-Steveville-3.
This raw gas delivery rate was determined to continue its estimated capacity for more than three years before experiencing a 15% per year decline over an estimated 10-15 year.
Imperial reported $1.63 million CAD in cash as of March 31, 2022 and recorded an exploration and evaluation asset balance of $8.88 million as of the same date.
Royal Helium reported $3.86 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 31, 2022 and recorded an exploration and evaluation asset balance of $20.09 million as of the same date.
On June 14, 2022, Royal announced it had identified six high priority targets from final seismic results at Val Marie.
The program consisted of 35 kilometres of both newly acquired and purchased trade data and identified a series of large structural features which allowed Royal to select the aforementioned targets.
Royal also announced the initial well at Val Marie had been permitted and was scheduled to spud on July 10, 2022.
Royal Helium currently trades at $0.32 per share for a market cap of $46.39 million.
–Gaalen Engen
