Page 12 - AsianOil Week 29 2020

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The company has maintained its 2020 pro- Commenting on the troubled three-train
duction guidance at 27.5-29.5mn boe, but has expansion of PNG LNG, Oil Search said the PNG
adjusted the composition of said volume. government’s talks with ExxonMobil on terms that
Oil Search now expects the PNG LNG were “fair and balanced for all stakeholders” had
project to deliver 24.5-25.5mn boe, up from been wrapped up in May and that both sides had
a previously projected 24-25mn boe, owing “re-engaged on the P’nyang gas agreement”.
to strong first-half production. The Exxon- However, the independent added: “Due to
Mobil-operated gas export project, in which [coronavirus] COVID-19 and its impact on
Oil Search owns a 29% interest, operated at an oil and gas prices, Total and ExxonMobil have
annualised rate of 8.8mn tonnes per year in demobilised the majority of their LNG expan-
the second quarter compared with 8.7mn tpy sion technical and commercial staff.”
in the previous period. The government said in February that it had
Oil Search now expects production from its ended talks with ExxonMobil on the P’nyang
operated assets to amount to around 3-4mn boe, project, which is located in the Western High-
down from a previous guidance of 3-5mn boe. lands, because it felt the terms were not attractive
This is owing to the suspension of gas and con- enough for the country.
densate production at the Hides Gas-to-Elec- Under the proposed expansion, one train will
tricity (GTE) project, following the suspension use gas from the P’nyang and other PNG LNG,
of operations at the Barrick (Niugini) operated while two trains will use gas from the Total-led
Porgera gold mine. Papua LNG project.™

Beach’s production,

revenue slide in April-June

PERFORMANCE AUSTRALIAN developer Beach Energy per boe, down 26% on the prior quarter owing to
announced on July 22 that both its production lower realised liquids prices.
and revenue had slid in the April-June quarter. Beach said that coronavirus (COVID-19)
The company produced 6.84mn barrels of oil quarantine related field restrictions had reduced
equivalent in the quarter, down 2% from 6.94mn Western Flank tool time by around 25% and
boe in the previous quarter. Revenue amounted had delayed the timing of new well connections.
to AUD320mn ($228mn), down 26% from the These field restrictions were resolved in June.
AUD431mn ($307.03mn) recorded in the Janu- Beach managing director and CEO Matt
ary-March quarter. Kay said: “Our gas revenues remain stable and
Beach attributed this to a lower realised oil [financial year 2019-2020] oil production was
price of AUD46.90 ($33.42) per barrel, which 8.8mn barrels, 27% higher than [2018-2019]
was 37% lower than the prior quarter. and in line with guidance of 8.7-9.2mn barrels.”
The company said the average realised pric- The company produced 21.2 PJ (552.23bn
ing across all its products was AUD44.8 ($31.92) cubic metres) of sales gas in the April-June quar-
ter, compared with the 21.1 PJ (549.62 bcm)
produced in the January-March quarter. The
company noted that gas sale nominations from
its customers in Australia and New Zealand had
been dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Beach said it would release its 2019-
2020 results on August 17, the company noted
that it expected its underlying earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation
(EBITDA) to be marginally below its prior guid-
ance of AUD1.175bn. It attributed the missed
target on depressed liquids prices, the impact
of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on
production and the inclusion of costs relating
to its Tawhaki 1 exploration well offshore New
Zealand in its underlying EBITDA.™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 23•July•2020