26th Oct 2015 08:04
LONDON (Alliance News) - SEPLAT Petroleum Development Co PLC Monday reported a dramatic fall in revenue and profit in the first nine months of 2015 as a substantial lift in production was not enough to offset the large fall in oil prices.
The company reported a fall in revenue to USD419.9 million in the first nine months of 2015, from USD592.5 million a year earlier, leading its pretax profit to plummet to USD68.5 million from USD227.9 million.
Revenue fell as a result of lower oil prices which on average fell by 55% in the first nine months of 2015 to USD49.3 per barrel compared with USD109.9 per barrel a year earlier. Partially offsetting that was a 38% rise in production to 40,012 barrels of oil equivalent per day, which is also ahead of its full year guidance of 32,000 to 36,000 barrels per day.
Brent was trading a smidgen below USD48 per barrel on Monday morning.
In September, average daily production grew even further to 56,415 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
That total revenue was comprised of USD367.0 million from crude oil and USD53.0 million from gas sales. Crude revenue was down 36% year-on-year due to the fall in oil prices but gas revenue more than tripled after it completed its Oben gas plant expansion.
The company is set to begin a second phase expansion at the Oben gas plant, which will increase its capacity to 225.0 million standard cubic feet of gas per day from its current 150.0 million standard cubic feet capacity.
Although revenue plummeted, SEPLAT also reported a significant rise in its cost of sales to USD227.9 million, giving it a gross profit of only USD192.0 million compared with a cost of sales of USD240.6 million and a gross profit of USD351.8 million a year earlier.
SEPLAt also said its finance charges doubled to USD62.0 million from USD33.6 million, partially offset by its administrative costs falling to USD84.2 million from USD112.2 million.
The company decided to pay a USD0.04 per share interim dividend "as a result of the stronger third quarter".
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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