28th Jul 2015 08:24
LONDON (Alliance News) - Seplat Petroleum Development Co PLC Tuesday reported a large fall in profit in the first half of 2015 as revenue plummeted due to lower oil prices and periods of production downtime.
The Nigerian upstream exploration and production company reported a USD41.3 million pretax profit in the first half of 2015, less than a third of the USD156.0 million profit made a year earlier, as revenue plummeted to USD247.6 million from USD388.2 million.
The company also reported a substantial rise in finance charges to GBP40.2 million from GBP21.6 million, but this was offset by finance income rising to USD10.9 million from USD4.2 million, administrative expenses falling to USD50.8 million from USD83.4 million, and foreign exchange gains rising to USD12.4 million from USD9.7 million.
Working interest production rose 19% year on year to 32,580 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and within the full-year guidance range of 32,000 to 36,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Total production comprised of 23,705 barrels of liquids and 53.3 million standard cubic feet of gas.
Seplat said production was hit by 52 full and 25 partial days of downtime on third party infrastructure. If the company was not hit by that downtime, production would have been around 41,797 barrels per day, it said.
Although production rose, Seplat was hurt by the fall in world oil prices, achieving an average of USD53.3 per barrel compared to USD112.4 per barrel a year earlier, but gas prices improved considerably to USD2.75 per million standard cubic feet from USD1.50.
Seplat shares were down 1.1% to 101.85 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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