Abu Dhabi’s National Energy Company, the state-owned international oil company, has reported a $46.83 million loss for the second quarter of 2013.
The company started the year strong by announcing a discovery in the new Darwin oil field in the Northern North Sea area near the Shetland Islands in Scotland; and by starting production production from the Cormorant East field development in the UK North Sea which is expected to contain 10 – 30 million barrels of oil in place.
“The first half of 2013 was characterised by good progress against TAQA’s long term growth projects, while a number of short-term operational issues impacted profitability,” said the company in a statement.
The company cited lower production in the UK North Sea and unplanned outages at two power plants as the main factors behind a 3% decline in revenues to $1.59 billion for Q2 2013, from $1.64 billion of the same period last year.
TAQA’s oil and gas sector was hit hardest between Q2 2013 and Q2 2012; falling $152 million, or 19 per cent, to $655 million.
Total average global daily production for H1 2013 decreased to 127,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed), compared with 136,600 boed in the same period last year, a fall of 7%. As the company reported in Q1 2013, this was driven primarily by lower production in the UK North Sea, due to the shut-in of Cormorant Alpha in January 2013. The shut-in followed a hydrocarbon release in one of the concrete legs of the platform.
As a result, Cormorant Alpha production of between 8,000 to 10,000 barrels was shut in. Repair work to two pipelines which suffered internal leaks was completed, and limited production from certain wells was restarted at the end of June. Full production is expected to resume from Cormorant Alpha in the third quarter.
Meanwhile in Iraq, TAQA and its partners have submitted a field development plan for the Atrush block, with first production expected in 2015. TAQA assumed operatorship of this highly prospective concession in 2013 and is currently testing the third well on the block.
Carl Sheldon, Chief Executive Officer of TAQA, said: “We have worked hard to overcome a number of operational challenges that affected our performance in the first half of the year, while making great progress against project milestones. We are focused on operational excellence and look forward to ending the year with a positive financial outcome.”
