Comet Ridge today provides the following corporate update in relation to recent funding, commercial and operations activities.

Funding update

Comet Ridge announced earlier in the month that the Company had completed two important funding initiatives:

• A placement of new shares to institutional investors to raise $5.0 million (net of costs); and
• Drawdown of the first tranche of the Pure Asset Management facility of $6.5 million.

The combination of these funding initiatives, plus existing cash and remaining Pure facility, provides Comet Ridge with available cash in excess of $15 million, which will be applied to the upcoming Mahalo North drilling activities and corporate costs.

Commercial update

Comet Ridge has provided a notice to CleanCo Queensland Limited to commence gas sales negotiations in accordance with the 2019 Agreement.

Under the Mahalo JV agreements, Comet Ridge has full rights to market and sell its equity share of production from the Mahalo Gas Project. The Company also holds 100% interests in the Mahalo North (ATP 2048), East (ATP 2061) and Far East (ATP 2063) blocks. These combined blocks cover a very large area of over 1800 km².

Comet Ridge and Santos have had numerous technical meetings in recent months to progress the Mahalo Gas Project and in particular, the final appraisal steps required prior to development, incorporating the northern blocks, 100% held by Comet Ridge. Technical and other data relating to these blocks has been provided to Santos and commercial discussions are continuing around the consolidation of the Mahalo Gas Hub area into one large natural gas project.

Operations update

The Company is significantly advanced in preparations for the 4Q 2021 drilling and well testing program in the 100% Mahalo North (ATP 2048) block. The key items for this program are the drilling and testing of the first long development style dual lateral well in the Mahalo Gas Hub area, at Mahalo North 2.