Whiting Petroleum To Convert $721 Mln Convertible Notes Into Common Stock

(RTTNews) - Whiting Petroleum Corp. (WLL) said it gave notice to mandatorily convert $716.8 million of its outstanding mandatory convertible notes into shares of Whiting common stock on December 19, 2016.

Prior to such notice, holders of $4.2 million of outstanding mandatory convertible notes had voluntarily converted such notes into shares of Whiting common stock.

As a result of the mandatory conversion and the voluntary conversions, the company will have issued about 77.6 million shares of its common stock to retire all of the $721.0 million of mandatory convertible senior notes and mandatory convertible senior subordinated notes.

James Volker, Whiting's Chairman, President and CEO, said, "Upon the completion of this conversion, we will reduce our debt by $721 million. After the conversion and the sale of our North Dakota midstream assets for $375 million that we anticipate to close in early 2017, we will have reduced our debt by $2.3 billion or 41% since March 31, 2016, approximately equal to all the debt assumed in the Kodiak acquisition."