The Cana­di­an en­er­gy com­pa­ny op­er­at­ing in T&T, Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration, has en­tered in­to an agree­ment with its ex­ist­ing Trinidad-based lender for an in­crease in bor­row­ing ca­pac­i­ty by US$13 mil­lion.

A state­ment from the com­pa­ny yes­ter­day said the par­ties are cur­rent­ly doc­u­ment­ing an amend­ed and re­stat­ed bank loan agree­ment and re­lat­ed se­cu­ri­ty reg­is­tra­tions, fol­low­ing which the ad­di­tion­al cred­it ca­pac­i­ty will be­come ef­fec­tive.

It ex­plained that the par­ties are cur­rent­ly doc­u­ment­ing an amend­ed and re­stat­ed bank loan agree­ment and re­lat­ed se­cu­ri­ty reg­is­tra­tions, fol­low­ing which the ad­di­tion­al cred­it ca­pac­i­ty will be­come ef­fec­tive.

The prin­ci­pal changes in­clud­ed in the amend­ed bank loan are a new US$10 mil­lion five-year non-re­volv­ing term loan fa­cil­i­ty, with no prin­ci­pal re­pay­ment in the first year and six­teen equal and con­sec­u­tive quar­ter­ly pay­ments there­after; and an in­crease in Touch­stone’s cur­rent re­volv­ing loan fa­cil­i­ty bor­row­ing ca­pac­i­ty from US$7 mil­lion to US$10 mil­lion, which will ma­ture two years from the ex­e­cu­tion date and may be re­newed at the op­tion of the par­ties there­after.

The state­ment added that fol­low­ing ex­e­cu­tion of the amend­ed bank loan, Touch­stone’s fa­cil­i­ties will con­sist of its un­changed ex­ist­ing sev­en-year term loan fa­cil­i­ty, the new five-year US$10 mil­lion term loan fa­cil­i­ty and the in­creased US$10 mil­lion re­volv­ing loan fa­cil­i­ty.

The ex­ist­ing sev­en-year non-re­volv­ing term loan fa­cil­i­ty has a cur­rent prin­ci­pal bal­ance of US$21 mil­lion, with 14 equal and con­sec­u­tive quar­ter­ly prin­ci­pal pay­ments of US$1.5 mil­lion out­stand­ing through to the June 15, 2027 ma­tu­ri­ty date.

“We have US$7 mil­lion drawn on our re­volv­ing loan fa­cil­i­ty, re­sult­ing in an ag­gre­gate US$28 mil­lion in bank debt prin­ci­pal cur­rent­ly out­stand­ing.

“We in­tend to use the ad­di­tion­al amend­ed bank loan fa­cil­i­ty bor­row­ing ca­pac­i­ty to fi­nance our 2024 cap­i­tal pro­gramme as pre­sent­ed in our De­cem­ber 19, 2023 news re­lease en­ti­tled Touch­stone an­nounces 2024 cap­i­tal bud­get, pre­lim­i­nary 2024 guid­ance and an op­er­a­tional up­date,” Touch­stone fur­ther ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing its drilling op­er­a­tions, Touch­stone has com­menced drilling the Cas­cadu­ra-3 de­vel­op­ment well and the CO-374 de­vel­op­ment well.

Cas­cadu­ra-3 was spud on March 1, 2024 from its Cas­cadu­ra C sur­face lo­ca­tion on the Or­toire block in which the com­pa­ny has an 80 per cent work­ing in­ter­est. The CO-374 was spud on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2024 on its CO-1 block, in which Touch­stone has a 100 per cent work­ing in­ter­est.

Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration is a Cal­gary, Al­ber­ta-based com­pa­ny en­gaged in the busi­ness of ac­quir­ing in­ter­ests in pe­tro­le­um and nat­ur­al gas rights and the ex­plo­ration, de­vel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion and sale of pe­tro­le­um and nat­ur­al gas.

Touch­stone is cur­rent­ly ac­tive in on­shore prop­er­ties lo­cat­ed in T&T.