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BP: 4Q production unlikely to change Company expects final figures to mirror third quarter; problems include reduced Prudhoe output, delays at Gulf's Thunder Horse The Associated Press
BP, Europe’s second-largest oil company by market value, said Jan. 9 that production in the fourth quarter is unlikely to change compared with the previous three months, following more than a year of declining output.
The company expects to report production of 3.82 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the quarter ended Dec. 31, slightly higher than the daily average of 3.816 million barrels in the third quarter, BP said in a trading update. In the fourth quarter last year, production was 4.022 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The company has been hit by a series of problems, including the temporary closure of operations at the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska and delays to the opening of the key Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP said production levels had been affected by weather-related delays in Alaska, unusually low seasonal gas demand and a quota cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Analyst: report in line with expectations Brendan Wilders, an analyst at Oriel Securities, said the report was in line with expectations, although some had expected daily production closer to 4 million barrels.
“There’s a list of new excuses, but no real surprises,” Wilder said.
Shares in BP fell 2.7 percent to 53.75 pounds ($10.39) on the London Stock Exchange. They have lost about 20 percent of their value since April, following on a series of problems starting in 2005 when an explosion at its Texas City refinery killed 15 workers.
BP also said the average price of a barrel of Brent, the U.K. North Sea crude benchmark, was $59.60 a barrel in the fourth quarter, the first decline in a year and a drop of 14 percent from $69.60 in the third quarter.
The company said output increased after the company conducted maintenance in the North Sea and Alaska, but those gains were offset by delays in Alaska loadings and low demand for gas.
Prudhoe output back to 400,000 bpd Output from the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska had returned to 400,000 barrels a day by the end of the third quarter, BP said, after half of that amount was shut down in August after pipeline corrosion and a small oil spill were discovered.
The startup of the Dalia offshore oil field in Angola, in which BP has a 16.67 percent stake, was delayed from September to mid-December by Total SA, which operates the field. The Dalia field is expected to produce 240,000 barrels per day in the first half of this year.
BP has said it expects to produce more than 800,000 bpd from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields in Azerbaijan, in which it owns a 34.1 percent share. Media reports had suggested that production had temporarily fallen by around 40 percent in early December due to a power failure on an offshore platform.
The company said in the statement that it expects a steep decline in refining margins across most regions in the fourth quarter. Margins were the tightest at BP’s U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast plants.
Figures for the full year will be published Feb. 6.
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