28th Aug 2014 07:07
LONDON (Alliance News) - SOCO International PLC said Thursday that trading in its first-half was in line with its expectations, despite reporting pretax profit and revenue falls as it reiterated its production guidance for the full-year and announced a GBP73 million cash return to shareholders.
The oil and gas exploration and production company said pretax profit declined to USD174.7 million in its first-half, down from USD228.7 million last year. In its results for the six months to June 30, 2014 SOCO said revenue also fell, coming in at USD246.4 million from the USD324.0 million recorded last year.
Net profit also declined on the period, down to USD78.8 million from USD105.4 million in 2013, aid the company.
Despite the lower metrics, SOCO said that trading in its first-half has been in line with company expectations and retains its full-year production guidance at 14,000 - 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The company said production in the first six months of 2014 came in at 13,960 boepd.
The FTSE 250-listed company said that the half-year saw continued strong cash generation from its Vietnam operations and that its Te Giac Trang field 2014 in-fill drilling programme remains ongoing with six development wells set to be drilled during the full-year, forming the company's operational focus in the second-half.
SOCO has a 30.5% interest in the Te Giac Trang field which is operated by Hoang Long Joint Operating Company.
While performing in line with expectations, SOCO said field production at TGT declined to 39,863 boepd - 11,939 boepd net to SOCO - from 14,967 boepd for the first six months of 2013 and 14,635 boepd for the full-year of 2013. The drop is attributed to "TGT's reduced share of the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading vessel capacity and, to a lesser extent, to the deferral of the 2013 TGT development drilling programme," said SOCO.
In a separate statement Thursday the FTSE 250-listed company proposed a USD121 million (GBP73 million) cash return to shareholders. The proposal of 22 pence per share will be structured as a B and/or C shares issuance which will enable all shareholders to elect whether to receive the proceeds as income, capital, or a combination of the two.
The B/C Share scheme will be voted on a general meeting on September 22, said SOCO.
"Our focus this year has been on delivering steady progress on the TGT field which continues to perform as expected. The 2014 TGT in-fill development drilling programme is underway with three wells drilled to date. The H5 development project is progressing according to plan targeting first oil in just a little over a year. Our exciting two-well exploration programme offshore the Republic of Congo is underway with the first well in the programme, the Lidongo X Marine-101, currently being drilled," said Ed Story, chief executive officer of SOCO.
Shares in SOCO International were trading 0.39% higher at 436.51 pence per share shortly after the market open Thursday.
By Alice Attwood; [email protected]; @AliceAtAlliance
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