The sector delivered a study in contrasts: one North Sea-to-Asia explorer expanded its licence footprint and prospect inventory on the back of regulatory backing, while a Trinidad and Morocco-focused junior turned to deeply discounted equity to keep its production programme funded. Both moves carried immediate market consequences, with Seascape Energy Asia edging higher and Predator Oil & Gas sharply lower as the dilutive terms of its placing weighed on the shares.
Seascape secures major Malaysia licence expansion
Seascape Energy Asia (AIM:SEA) has been granted a substantial extension to its Temaris Cluster Small Field Asset production sharing contract in Malaysia, after receiving a Letter of Agreement from PETRONAS via Malaysia Petroleum Management. The London-listed explorer, which holds 100% of the asset, saw shares rise 2.551% to 102.0p on news that the Temaris Area Extension adds 547 square kilometres to the licence, a 45% increase on the original area awarded in June 2025 that takes the total PSC footprint to approximately 1,770 square kilometres.
The extension builds directly on resource work already under way: Seascape has commissioned Sproule ERCE to update the competent person's report that had previously identified 950 billion cubic feet of gross mean Prospective Resources across the Temaris PSC, with the revised figure due in the fourth quarter and potential, the company said, to double the roughly 1 trillion cubic feet of net mean Prospective Resources currently booked on the licence. PETRONAS has also committed to making new 3D seismic data over the extension area available as part of a regional acquisition programme in late 2026, intended to help de-risk a possible extension of the Mengkuang gas discovery, which currently carries 2C Contingent Resources of 29 billion cubic feet based on legacy 2D data alone. The additional work commitment covers processing of that 3D seismic plus a contingent exploration well, funded from existing cash resources.
"This acreage expansion enhances the value of our Temaris asset, capturing more of the play and adding breadth and depth to our prospect inventory," said Pierre Eliet, Malaysia Country Chair and Executive Director at Seascape Energy Asia.
The expanded acreage lands at a pivotal moment for Seascape's Temaris Cluster, centred on the Tembakau and Mengkuang gas discoveries in shallow water off Peninsular Malaysia, where FEED contracts are already complete and first gas is targeted for 2028 from two unmanned wellhead platforms tied back to existing infrastructure. A near-doubling of net prospective resources, if confirmed by the updated CPR, would materially deepen the company's development inventory beyond the two discoveries already sanctioned for development, strengthening the economic case for the unmanned platform infrastructure and giving Seascape additional running room to pursue further appraisal and development drilling on a licence it now controls almost exclusively on its own terms.
Predator Oil & Gas raises £2.5 million to fund Trinidad expansion
Predator Oil & Gas Holdings (LSE:PRD) has conditionally placed 166.67 million new shares at 1.5p to raise £2.5 million before expenses, with the stock falling 39.362% to 1.425p as the market absorbed the scale of the discount. The placing price sits well below the 3.5p at which the company raised £3 million in May for the same broad Trinidad and Morocco appraisal programme, underscoring how much tighter funding conditions have become for the junior producer since its last cash call.
Each placing share comes with one attached warrant exercisable at 2.5p over 24 months, and the company is separately issuing 11.67 million broker warrants at the placing price with a 36-month life, adding further potential dilution down the line. Net proceeds are earmarked first for growing Trinidad production: expanding Snowcap-3's production facilities to lift initial throughput, hot-stacking the drilling rig at the well site to keep it development-ready, and funding testing on up to two Goudron infield development wells to be drilled by NABI Construction under the existing Master Services Agreement.
The steep repricing from May's 3.5p raise to this round's 1.5p signals the market's reduced appetite for funding Predator's work programme on previous terms, and the attached warrant structure effectively commits the company to further share issuance if the stock recovers toward 2.5p. With cash now directed squarely at near-term Trinidad production uplift rather than exploration, the raise buys operational runway but at a dilution cost shareholders will be weighing well beyond today's session.
