FRISCO, Texas, June 24, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ecoark Holdings, Inc. ("Ecoark") (OTC: ZEST), announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, White River SPV 2 LLC, appeared virtually before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division on June 18, 2020 and completed the acquisition of certain assets located in Mississippi and Louisiana from SN TMS, LLC, a subsidiary of Sanchez Energy Corporation (“Sanchez Energy”), in conjunction with Chapter 11 Case No. 19-34508 (MI). The all-cash transaction, paid from existing cash on hand, includes 6 wellbores and additional leasehold acreage including a participation option for deep drilling rights on various acreage with proved reserves.
This transaction follows Ecoark’s announcement made on June 11, 2020 regarding the acquisition of 262 total wells in Mississippi and Louisiana including 4 wells in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (“TMS”) formation, acquired from SR Acquisition I, LLC, a subsidiary of Sanchez Energy.
“We are excited to announce the completion of an additional highly opportunistic acquisition of energy assets as we continue to grow our portfolio of high-quality cash generating assets,” said Randy May, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ecoark. “This acquisition complements our existing asset portfolio in the region and reflects Ecoark’s ongoing commitment to its holding company strategy and industry diversification.”
“Immediately following the completion of our acquisition announced earlier this month, we conducted an extensive onsite evaluation of the acreage in conjunction with members of our geological and petroleum engineering teams to identify ways to maximize investment returns and crude production,” continued Mr. May. “As a result, we successfully completed a pilot test and were able to bring two wells previously shut-in with future utility in the Thanksgiving Oil Field in Amite County, Mississippi back online to a total production rate of 20 barrels of oil per day at a very modest investment with a quick payback. Following our success, we are now commencing a more formal capital expenditure plan to achieve similar returns on a larger scale for other of our recently acquired wells categorized as shut-in with future utility.”
“We have been working closely with our lender on our $35 million long-term debt financing and are expecting to close the first tranche of this financing in July 2020,” said Brad Hoagland, Principal Financial Officer of Ecoark. “We continue to pursue and consider a number of targeted asset acquisitions in our pipeline to deploy this growth capital in a non-dilutive manner to shareholders that is expected to have a net accretive impact to the company’s earnings.”
About Ecoark Holdings, Inc.
Founded in 2011, Ecoark is a diversified holding company. The company has three wholly owned subsidiaries: Zest Labs, Inc. (“Zest Labs”), Banner Midstream Corp (“Banner Midstream”) and Trend Discovery Holdings (“Trend Discovery”). Zest Labs, offers the Zest FreshTM solution, a breakthrough approach to quality management of fresh food, is specifically designed to help substantially reduce the $161 billion amount of food loss the U.S. experiences each year. Banner Midstream is engaged in oil and gas exploration, production, and drilling operations on over 20,000 cumulative acres of active mineral leases in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Banner Midstream also provides transportation and logistics services and procures and finances equipment to oilfield transportation services contractors. Trend Discovery invests in a select number of early stage startups each year as part of the fund’s Venture Capital strategy; we are open-minded investors with a founder-first mentality. Trend Discovery LP has an audited track record of uncorrelated outperformance of the S&P 500 since inception.
Forward Looking Statements
In addition to historical information, this release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that are expected or anticipated to occur in the future are forward-looking statements and are identified with, but not limited to, words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "estimate", "plan", "outlook", and "project" and other similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions). Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations, including all statements regarding financial guidance, anticipated future growth, business strategies, competitive position, industry environment, potential growth opportunities and the effectiveness of the technology discussed in this release and the effects of regulation. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other important factors, many of which are outside management's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. These risks include, without limitation, the risk of increased competition; the potential inability to grow and manage growth profitably, including that the collaboration between AgroFresh and Zest may not yield the results expected, the technology described herein may not perform as intended, risks associated with acquisitions and investments, changes in applicable laws or regulations, commodities prices, and the possibility of adverse economic, business, and/or competitive factors. Additional risks and uncertainties are identified and discussed in each company's filings with the SEC, which are available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.
ZEST FRESH™ and Zest Labs™ are trademarks of Zest Labs, Inc.
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Investor Relations:
John Mills
ICR
646-277-1254
John.Mills@icrinc.com