Oil Search performance strong

OIL Search Limited’s total revenue for the first quarter of this year was 21 per cent below the fourth quarter of last year, even though the company’s overall performance was still strong.
The total revenue for the quarter was US$398.1 million (K1.32bil), said managing director Peter Botten in the company’s first quarter report released yesterday.
In a statement, he said that was primarily due to the timing of LNG shipments, with three LNG cargos, worth more than US$35 million (K116.034mil) in revenue net to Oil Search, on the water at the end of the period, compared to one at the end of the previous quarter.
In addition, average-realised oil and condensate prices were 3 per cent lower than in the prior quarter – at US$62.35 (K206.706) per barrel – while average-realised LNG and gas prices declined by 7 per cent to US$10.15 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).
Oil Search produced 7.25 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), with its daily production rate in the first quarter this year similar to the fourth quarter of last year.
Botten said the PNG LNG project recorded another period of strong performance, producing at an average annualised rate of 8.8 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) for the quarter.
Following the work undertaken at the Hides Gas Conditioning Plant during the Highlands earthquake shut-in, this is the third consecutive quarter of production at or above 8.7 million tonnes per annum, with the project achieving an annualised production rate of 8.8 MTPA for the nine months to Mar 31, almost 30 per cent above nameplate capacity and 6 per cent above the annual production rate pre-earthquake.
Botten said oil production was impacted by two minor outages at the central processing facility and several planned well shut-ins at the Moran field.