Toreador Resources Corporation is undertaking a review of a full range of strategic alternatives available to the Company to enhance shareholder value. Toreador has formed a special board committee ("Strategic Committee"), led by Vice Chairman Julien Balkany, which includes five of the independent directors of the Company, to work with management to conduct the review. The Board of Directors has retained RBC Capital Markets as its financial advisor.
RBC Capital Markets will assist the Strategic Committee to consider and evaluate a range of options during the months ahead, including, but not limited to, equity/debt offerings, a credit facility, substantial equity investments, and/or various corporate transactions. Toreador will also include as part of the effort a review of possible partnerships in the Paris Basin Oil Shale, the Company's primary growth platform.
There is no assurance that this process will result in any changes to the Company's current business plans or lead to any specific action or transaction. While the process is underway, the Company does not intend or expect to disclose any developments regarding the process until, if ever, a specific transaction is approved or the Board determines to terminate the process.
Craig McKenzie, President and CEO of Toreador, said, "Toreador has delivered positive and transformational change over the last nine months, reducing debt, lowering cost, and most recently exiting Turkey and Hungary to focus on the conventional exploration of our French acreage. We have also been extremely active in planning our ‘proof of concept’ phase for the unconventional exploitation of the Paris Basin Oil Shale. We welcome the assistance of RBC Capital Markets to advise the Company in unlocking the undervalued potential of the oil shale and in evaluating all options to enhance shareholder value."
Paris Basin Shale Oil
The Company is pursuing the exploitation of unconventional resources in the Paris Basin, which is a transformational growth opportunity. Toreador's work in this area has shown that the Paris Basin has exceedingly similar characteristics to the Bakken Formation in the Williston Basin (North America). The Company has the right to develop 649,000 acres (with an additional 153,000 acres pending regulatory approval) in the heart of the Paris Basin where an estimated 65 billion barrels of oil are believed to remain in the source rock that is located between the long-producing conventional reservoirs of the Paris Basin.
The Company intends to use its proven U.S. experience with the Bakken Formation in Europe to exploit the vast resources that are demonstrated to be in the Paris Basin, using technologies commonplace in the U.S., but not yet employed in Europe. Pursuit of the Paris Basin Oil Shale will comprise four phases, with the scope of the latter three phases depending on previous results. The Company's current focus is on implementing Phase 1 through the end of 2010.