Cairn Energy outlines major drilling programme as losses deepen

20th Aug 2013 08:13

Cairn Energy unveiled details of a "12 month, multi-well high impact frontier exploration programme" after it plunged deeper into losses at the half year mark.The Edinburgh-based oil and gas explorer said the drilling progamme was expected to kick off next month with two wells offshore Morocco, followed by two offshore wells in Senegal, one off the west coast of Ireland and a well planned in Greenland in the second half of the year.Chief Executive Simon Thomson said: "The drilling programme targets a combined gross un-risked resource of more than four billion barrels of oil equivalent across a variety of plays and countries with follow on potential."With the company sitting on a net cash pile of $1.5bn at the end of June, Thomson said the drilling programme was against a backdrop of balance sheet strength.With its Catcher and Kraken fields in the North Seas still to come on stream, Cairn has no production revenues. It plunged to a pre-tax loss of $372.6m from losses of $50m in the same period last year after results were hit by a $267.5m impairment charge on its investment in Cairn Energy. Its 10% stake in the business was valued at nearly $1bn at the end of June.Shares in the oil explorer were down 0.04% at 276.9p at 08:44 on Tuesday.TB