Oil and gas explorer Rex International filed two notices with the local bourse on Jan 12. In its first announcement, Rex says that its Norwegian subsidiary Lime Petroleum Holding AS is seeking a deferment of Lime’s 2027 and 2028 interest payments to bondholders.
Lime is seeking an extension on the bond payments, including any late interest penalty, to Mar 31. The original payment dates are Jan 19 for 2027 bonds and Jan 12 for 2028 bonds.
In addition, Lime is requesting the temporary waiver and suspension of minimum liquidity covenants for the bonds until Mar 31.
Rex attributes the requests to the unexpected delay in income from oil production and additional costs of drilling operations arising from operational and logistical challenges in the Sèmè field, offshore Benin. This has negatively impacted Lime’s short-term cash flow and liquidity position. Oil production in Sèmè field is carried out by Lime’s indirect subsidiary Akrake Petroleum.
Rex says that bondholders have up to 23 January 2026 to vote on the proposed requests and or other resolutions as may be arrived at between the bondholders and Lime. It adds that it will update the market accordingly in accordance with applicable rules of the SGX-ST in the event of any material updates.
The second announcement provided an update on the situation at Sèmè Field, Benin, following its announcement on Christmas Eve last year that the project encountered technical challenges during drilling.
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Rex says that its indirect subsidiary Akrake Petroleum is expected to start production at the Sèmè Field in Block 1, Benin in end-January 2026. This is contingent on the completion of the drilling of the production well AK-2H in the reservoir section, which is expected to start early in the week of 12 January 2026.
Providing more details on the technical difficulties, Rex says that delays were caused by several stuck pipe incidents attributed to the “overburdening” of geomechanically unstable shale layers above the reservoir. These “necessitated” redrilling of the overburdened section which was carried out successfully using new geo-mechanical data obtained from drilling operations to optimise the drilling parameters.
Previously, The Edge Singapore had queried for more details on the technical difficulties with Rex responding that it “has no further information to share.”
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The drilling campaign comprised an exploration well to get more information about deeper, undeveloped reservoirs within the Sèmè Field, and two horizontal production wells in the H6 reservoir unit.
Once the AK-2H well starts production, Rex says drilling on the other two wells will be suspended, as the contract period for the jack-up drilling rig Borr Gerd comes to an end. The company adds that the mobile offshore production unit and the floating storage and offloading unit are on standby to start production at the location.
Rex also shares that there are plans to obtain a new drilling rig later in 2026 to finalise the drilling campaign. Rex says that it will evaluate the possibility of drilling an additional production well in the H6 reservoir in this second drilling campaign.
As at 10:14 am on Jan 13, shares in the counter are trading at around 14.4 cents, up 0.2 cents or 1.4%.
