Tullow Oil Plc is targeting a 2019 half-year profit of $500 million, which falls short of the $521 million recorded on 25 July 2018.
The official announcement of the results of the first half of the year will be made on 24 July 2019.
Underlying free cash flow (before the 2018 final dividend payment) is forecast to be around $100 million for the first half of the year and $450 million for the full year as compared to the $401 million free cash flow recorded for the first half of 2018.
The company also forecast revenue of around $900 million, a little lower than $905 recorded within the same period in 2018. Total revenue, however, does not include receipts for Tullow’s Corporate Business Interruption insurance proceeds.
The company, however, stated that the 2019 half-year profits could scale up to $650 million following the completion of their Uganda farm-down.
This was contained in a statement released on Wednesday, 26 June 2019.
On its operations in Ghana, the company said the Stena Forth and Maersk Venturer drillships have been working in tandem on Ghana drilling and completion operations throughout the first half of the year with four wells drilled and three wells completed.
The Stena Forth drillship has now left Ghana to commence drilling in Guyana. The Maersk Venturer will remain in Ghana and will complete the ongoing Enyenra-14 production well, a Jubilee producer and an Enyenra water-injector, before switching to drilling operations for the remainder of the year.
Tullow said the completion of the Enyenra-14 production well is taking longer than anticipated and consequently will be onstream later than planned. This delay has been reflected in a small revision to full-year guidance for TEN, which has been adjusted to around 71,000 bopd gross, from 73,000 bopd.
“Following a strong performance from Jubilee, production guidance for the year has been adjusted to around 95,000 bopd gross, up from 93,000 bopd. Reservoir performance in the first half from existing and new wells has been in line with expectations at both fields and Tullow expects to reach gross production from Ghana of around 180,000 bopd in the second half of 2019,” the statement said.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tullow Oil PLC, Paul McDade, said: “Tullow has made steady progress overall across the business in the first half of the year. Our balance sheet remains strong and we expect another year of solid free cash flow generation. I am particularly pleased with the significant progress we have made in Kenya and the agreement with the Government over a number of key commercial principles will greatly assist us in driving the project to FID. Our exciting and potentially material drilling campaign in Guyana will get underway later this month with the spud of the first of three wells planned for 2019.”
Credit: Tullow
