Record interim revenues for Tullow

5th Jul 2011 07:04

Tullow Oil enjoyed record revenues in the first half of the year while achieving a 79% exploration and appraisal success rate."The performance of our business since the beginning of 2011 has been excellent and we expect to deliver record financial results for the first half of the year," said the oil company's chief executive, Aidan Heavey.Total revenue for the first half of 2011 is expected to be a record for the company at around $1.05bn, compared with $486m for the same period in 2010. The significant increase in revenue is due to higher sales volumes in the first half of 2011, principally due to Jubilee field sales, together with the increased realised commodity prices.On the production front, group working interest production in the first half averaged 75,350 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), and is expected to rise to between 90,000 and 94,000 boepd over the full year, as the assets being acquired from Nuon and EO Group start to chip in.The realised oil price in the first six months of 2011 was around $112 a barrel (pre hedge) and $109 (post hedge), compared to a figure of $77 a barrel in 2010. The realised UK gas price was about 56p a therm (pre and post hedges), up from 34p a therm in 2010. Capital expenditure, excluding acquisitions, for the first half of 2011 amounted to $675m and, based on current estimates and work programmes, forecast capital expenditure for 2011 remains $1.5bn. Tullow's activities in Ghana and Uganda will comprise around 50% of the group's total capital outlay in 2011.Net debt at 30 June 2011 was in the region of $2.6bn and the unused debt capacity was about $740m."Looking forward, we have a busy programme of E&A [exploration and appraisal] activity in the second half including the result of our first exploration well in South America and a number of Jubilee follow-on campaigns in Guyana, Liberia and Sierra Leone," Heavey said. --jh