TG World gets loan using PPT credits

Eric Lidji

For Petroleum News

TG World Energy recently announced that it used Alaska tax credits to secure a loan.

The Calgary-based independent, which is exploring several prospects on the North Slope as part of a joint venture led by Brooks Range Petroleum Corp., said on Aug. 30 that it secured a nine-month bridge loan of $1 million using Petroleum Production Tax credits.

The program gives tax credits to companies that spend money exploring for oil and gas in the state. For companies like TG World without a taxable production base, the state gives a certificate that can be redeemed for cash or sold on the open market at a discount.

TG World said it received nearly $7.5 million in PPT credits already this year.

TG World said it plans to use the small loan to repay the remainder of $7.5 million loan taken out this past January. TG World secured that 18-month loan using “certain Alaska assets” and at the time said it planned to use the money “to fund ongoing exploration efforts in Alaska and Niger as well as to actively pursue other oil and gas opportunities.”

Two Alaska deals

In January, the company participated in an Alaska exploration well, the Sak River No. 1-A sidetrack in the new Beechey Point unit. TG World didn’t like the results of the well, though, and subsequently relinquished its interest in several properties held by the joint venture and wrote down $22 million in Alaska assets in the first quarter of the year.

That same month, the joint venture acquired the right to explore the North Tarn prospect, made of six Eni Petroleum leases contiguous to the west side of the Kuparuk River unit.

The joint venture plans to drill at North Tarn next year.

TG World also became a producer this year, but not in Alaska. The company acquired an interest in an oil play in the Philippines in March. The project came online in early June.

TG World also has assets in Niger.