CALGARY, Alberta, July 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — RMP Energy Inc. (the “Company” or “RMP”) (TSX:RMP) today announces a series of appointments that will result in the formation of a new executive management team for the Company. The new team will include Rob Colcleugh as Chief Executive Officer, Tim Krysak as President and Chief Operating Officer, Jeremy Smith as Vice President Engineering, Gregg Nixon as Vice President Completions and Production, Zoran Jankovic as Vice President Exploration and Dean Bernhard, who will continue as RMP’s Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer (collectively the “New Management Team”). The appointments of the new executive members are effective as of August 1, 2017, which will facilitate an orderly transition from the current management team. Professional biographies of the New Management Team are detailed below.

Each of the new executive management team have a demonstrated track record of operational excellence and long-term shareholder value generation in highly successful Canadian energy companies. Their combined experience and technical expertise is expected to be of substantial benefit to the Company and its shareholders.

Mr. Young, the Company’s Chairman of the Board, commented, “we are pleased to have assembled an experienced, highly-skilled and committed new leadership team capable of evaluating, delineating, optimizing and operating the Company’s prospective suite of Montney assets. New members of the leadership team have a strong focus on operational and safety excellence, disciplined capital allocation and efficiency along with a cost control emphasis, which collectively will serve to underpin the Company’s business plan going forward. I would like to thank the current executive team for their past contributions to the Company”.   

During this management transition period, the New Management Team will undertake an extensive engineering and geotechnical evaluation and assessment of the Company’s assets and operations. The team’s vast Montney experience will be brought to bear on developing the appropriate go-forward business plan in light of the current commodity price environment and prevailing capital market conditions. Details of the Company’s updated business plan will be provided in due course.

Mr. Colcleugh commented, “I am extremely excited to join and lead this exceptional oil and gas team who are at the forefront of unconventional resource development. We believe the Company’s Montney assets have tremendous potential and will benefit from the team’s experience with leading drilling and completions technologies.”

New Management Team Biographies

Rob Colcleugh – Chief Executive Officer
Rob Colcleugh brings over 20 years of diverse energy and capital markets experience. He most recently held the senior leadership position of Chief Executive Officer of Beyond Energy Services & Technology Corp., a managed pressure drilling service company. He remains a member of the Board of Directors of that entity and is also a member of the Board of Directors of Tidewater Midstream and Infrastructure Ltd.  During his professional career, Mr. Colcleugh was Managing Director of Investment Banking for Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. and was one of the founding members of Tristone Capital Inc. Over the last 15 years, he has provided financing, mergers, acquisitions and divestiture advisory services to a broad array of energy companies in the domestic Canadian, international, midstream and technology industries. He has a BA in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA from the Ivey Business School.

Tim Krysak – President and Chief Operating Officer
Tim Krysak is a Professional Engineer with 23 years of extensive technical, operational and managerial experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. Over the past 13 years, he was a key member of the management teams of both Tourmaline Oil Corp. and Duvernay Oil Corp. He most recently held the position of Vice President Drilling with Tourmaline, responsible for leading the successful execution of their extensive drilling and completion activities. Throughout his career, Mr. Krysak’s focus has been on operations optimization and efficiency with specific attention to cost reduction and well productivity.

Jeremy Smith – Vice President Engineering
Jeremy Smith is a professional engineer with over 16 years of experience within the upstream oil and gas and oilfield service industries. During his professional career, Mr. Smith has held various managerial, operational, and technical roles with Tourmaline Oil Corp., EQT Production Company, Shell Canada Limited and Schlumberger Oilfield Services. His most recent role was as a senior technical member of Tourmaline’s drilling department, wherein he was responsible for the successful, cost-effective execution of their extensive drilling operations. 

Gregg Nixon – Vice President Completions and Production

Gregg Nixon has 14 years of experience within the upstream oil and gas and oilfield service industries. Most recently, Mr. Nixon was responsible for development, exploitation, completions and production engineering in the Deep Basin for Tourmaline Oil Corp., with a major focus on completion design, fracture optimization, and overall operational execution and efficiencies. He was an integral member of a team that delivered significant, cost-effective production growth over a six-year period in Tourmaline’s Central Deep Basin area. Prior to Tourmaline, he worked at Duvernay Oil Corp., Shell Canada and also Sanjel Corporation and Calfrac Well Services Ltd., in various progressive roles.

Zoran Jankovic – Vice President Exploration
Zoran Jankovic is a Professional Geologist with 18 years of oil and gas exploration and development experience. Over the last 16 years, he worked exclusively at Paramount Resources Ltd., wherein he played a key role in the successful growth of Paramount’s liquids-rich, Deep Basin Montney and multi-zone Cretaceous tight gas developments in addition to the recent evaluation and assessment of Paramount’s recently-announced acquisition of Apache Canada.  Mr. Jankovic graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1998 with a B.Sc. (Honors) degree in Geology. He began his career at Chevron Canada Resources and Phillips Petroleum Resources before moving to Paramount, where he progressed his career to the most recent position of Geology Manager.

Dean Bernhard – Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Dean Bernhard is a Chartered Professional Accountant with 26 years of upstream oil and gas experience and is currently the Company’s Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to his current role, Mr. Bernhard served as Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Orleans Energy Ltd. He began his career with Amoco Canada Limited and previously worked for Tarragon Oil and Gas Limited, Marathon Oil Canada Limited, Compton Petroleum and E3 Energy Inc., in various progressively senior financial and accounting roles.

Private Placement

In conjunction with the appointment of the New Management Team, the Company’s Board of Directors has approved a private placement to incoming new executive members of up to an aggregate of 3,670,000 units of the Company (“Units“) at a purchase price of $0.60 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to approximately $2.2 million, each Unit being comprised of one (1) common share (“Common Share“) and one (1) common share purchase warrant (“Warrant“). Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one (1) Common Share at a price of $0.75 for a period of four (4) years. The Warrants will vest and become exercisable in equal tranches of one-third each upon the 20-day weighted average trading price of the Common Shares equaling or exceeding $0.75, $0.90 and $1.05, respectively (the “Incoming Management Private Placement”).  In conjunction therewith, the current members of the Board of Directors will be entitled to participate in a private placement of up to an additional 2,000,000 Units in the aggregate, with the pricing of the Units and Warrants to be determined based on the market price of the Common Shares following adequate dissemination of the news contained in this press release and otherwise in accordance with the rules and policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange (collectively with the Incoming Management Private Placement, the “Private Placement“). The aggregate proceeds of the Private Placement will be used for the Company’s capital expenditure program and general corporate purposes. Completion of the Private Placement remains subject to the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Operations Update

For the second quarter of 2017, the Company produced a corporate average daily production level of approximately 3,500 boe/d, with light crude oil and NGLs volumes accounting for 32% of the second quarter production. As previously-disclosed, on June 22, 2017 the Company announced the commissioning and start-up of its 100% owned and operated Elmworth 2-23 oil battery and gas handling facility (“2-23 Facility”), which is presently handling the crude oil, emulsion and natural gas production from two (2.0 net) of the Company’s Middle Montney horizontal wells. The Company is satisfied with the well productivity to-date, although well run-time has been intermittent due to mid-stream facility maintenance downstream of the 2-23 Facility. 

The Company recently drilled its fourth, 100% working interest Elmworth Montney horizontal well (15-23-68-3W6), from the same surface lease pad as the 2-23 Facility. The completion operation on the 15-23 well is expected to be undertaken in August. 

Advisors

GMP Securities L.P. (“GMP FirstEnergy“) acted as financial advisor to the Company’s Board of Directors and special committee of RMP.  National Bank Financial Inc. acted as advisor to the special committee of RMP with respect to the executive management transition and related private placement. 

The Company is scheduled to release its interim consolidated financial statements and associated Management’s Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended June 30, 2017 on August 14, 2017.

RMP Energy Inc. is a Montney-focused crude oil and natural gas producer, based in Calgary, Alberta.  RMP’s common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker “RMP”.  For additional information on the Company, please visit RMP’s website at:  www.rmpenergyinc.com.

Abbreviations

Reader Advisories

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this news release contains certain forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as “seek”, “anticipate”, “budget”, “plan”, “continue”, “estimate”, “approximate”, “expect”, “may”, “will”, “project”, “predict”, “potential”, “targeting”, “intend”, “could”, “might”, “should”, “believe”, “would” and similar expressions. More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forward-looking information relating to: the anticipated timing of certain drilling and completion operations, the potential of the Company’s Montney assets, the number and type of securities anticipated to be issued pursuant to the Private Placement, receipt of regulatory approvals and completion of the Private Placement and the anticipated use of proceeds therefrom. 

The forward-looking statements are founded on the basis of expectations and assumptions made by RMP which include, but are not limited to, the receipt of the required TSX approval for the Private Placement, management and Board participation in the Private Placement, the anticipated use of proceeds therefrom and future operations.  Forward-looking statements are subject to a wide range of risks and uncertainties, and although RMP believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will be realized. 

Any number of important factors could cause actual results to defer materially from those in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, regulatory and third party approvals not being obtained, the ability to implement corporate strategies, the state of domestic capital markets, the ability to obtain financing, changes in general market conditions and other factors more fully described from time to time in the reports and filings made by RMP with securities regulatory authorities.

Except as required by applicable laws, neither  RMP nor the New Management Team undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. 

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein.  The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “US Securities Act“), or any states’ securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to United States persons unless registered under the US Securities Act and applicable states’ securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Rob Colcleugh
Chief Executive Officer
(403) 608-3113
[email protected]

Dean Bernhard
Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
(403) 930-6304
[email protected]