Amplify Energy  Corp. received notice from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that it had regained compliance with the continued listing standards.

The company said it also received full forgiveness of its entire loan under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), established as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

“Our near-term focus remains on improving our balance sheet and maximizing free cash flow,” Martyn Willsher, Amplify’s president and CEO, commented in a company release on July 12.

Based in Houston, Amplify Energy is an independent oil and gas company with operations focused on long-lived, low-decline assets in Oklahoma, the Rockies, federal waters offshore California, East Texas / North Louisiana and the Eagle Ford.

Last September, Amplify was notified that the company was not in compliance with NYSE listing standards because the company’s average global market cap over a consecutive 30 trading-day period was less than $50 million. Additionally, its shareholders’ equity was less than $50 million.

As of July 14, Amplify’s market cap was about $134.4 million.

“We expect that the current commodity price environment,” Willsher continued in the release, “coupled with the low capital intensity of our long-lived, low-decline asset base, will deliver strong free cash flow for the remainder of the year and will accelerate in 2022, rapidly improving our leverage ratio to less than 1.5x by the end of 2022.”

The forgiveness of the PPP loan extinguishes approximately $5.5 million of debt from the company’s balance sheet. As of June 30, Amplify had net debt of approximately $216 million, with $235 million outstanding under the revolving credit facility and $19 million of cash on hand, according to its release.

Willsher concluded in his statement that he believes the continuous focus on free cash flow generation and the substantial delevering of Amplify’s balance sheet will provide the company with future optionality to allocate additional capital toward “asset reinvestment, accretive transactions, and return of capital initiatives.”

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