27th Apr 2018 14:20
LONDON (Alliance News) - Africa-focused oil & gas company Aminex PLC said Friday its revenue increased by 34% in 2017.
In 2017, revenue grew to USD6.63 million from USD4.93 million in 2016. At the end of December 2017 Aminex had a cash balance of USD6.23 million.
The company also managed to narrow its pretax loss to USD2.3 million from USD2.5 million the year before.
The gross production at its wells in 2017 was 3.60 billion cubic feet, up from 2.78 billions cubic feet the previous year. Aminex's share was 1.82 billions of standard cubic feet.
Aminex achieved average sales price of USD3.27 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas, up from USD3.25 last year.
The company said it "benefited" from continued average daily production at Kiliwani North, Tanzania of approximately 15 millions cubic feet per day for the first six months of the year, as reported in its half-year report.
During the second half of the year, however, production from the well started to "decline faster than expected". Aminex has said it has "identified various remedial actions" to enhance production and is currently investigating options to increase production..
Solo Oil PLC Chairman Neil Ritson, in a separate statement, which own 7.55% interest in the well, said: "It is encouraging that the technical work recently completed shows that further gas production and reserves can be accessed through a recompletion of the existing well and we look forward to confirmation of the operators plans as they firm up."
The "success" of the Ntorya-2 appraisal well and the subsequent work on the basin model has led to a "significant increase" in the independently ascribed resources for Ntorya, according to Aminex. It said the resource potential should be "commercially viable" with "increasing national demand in Tanzania" coupled with the proximity of the National Gas Gathering System enabling near-term production from the field.
Early production options could provide revenues from Ntorya within the next two years, say Aminex. It is also seeking to expand cash-generating operations on the Kiliwani North Development Licence through the development of a newly-identified lead, Kiliwani South. If proved successful, this lead's proximity to the Songo Songo Island gas processing plant would enable the company to generate revenues from two separate projects in Tanzania.
Aminex CEO Jay Bhattacherjee said: "The success of the Ntorya-2 well and subsequent technical work has contributed to a substantial increase in the 2C Contingent resource for Ntorya to 763 billions of standard cubic feet of gas. The well planning for Chikumbi-1 is at an advanced stage and we are in discussions with the Zubair Corporation for a possible farm-out of part of Aminex's interest in Ruvuma."
Shares in Aminex were down 2.0% to 2.94 pence each Friday.
Solo was trading down 2.4% to 3.22p per share.
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