Kazakh ZhaikMunai raises $100 mln via London issue

MOSCOW, March 28 (Reuters) - Kazakh-focused oil and gas producer ZhaikMunai (ZKMq.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday it had raised $100 million by placing a new share issue on the London Stock Exchange to fund growth and new projects.

The firm said in a statement it had placed global depositary receipts (GDR) at $10 each with the offering representing around 9.1 percent of its enlarged capital. That puts the firm's enlarged capital's at $1.1 billion.

"The listing will help ZhaikMunai achieve its goals of increasing oil production, improving the existing reserve base, exploiting our gas reserves and developing transport links," said Frank Monstrey, chairman of ZhaikMunai.

ZhaikMunai delayed a $760 million initial public offering (IPO) in London last year after entering talks with Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry and state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas.

ZhaikMunai owns a licence in the Chinarevskoye field in the northern part of the prospective Pre-Caspian Basin, one of the largest oil-producing regions in Central Asia. It has held a production-sharing agreement with the Kazakh government there since 1997.

It has said its estimated gross proved plus probable hydrocarbon reserves were 397 million barrels of oil equivalent as of July 1. ZhaikMunai began production in 2000 and produced just over a million barrels of crude oil in 2006. (Reporting by Tanya Mosolova, editing by Will Waterman)