12/04/2001
Colombian oil play Emerald Energy has beaten expectations with a pre-tax profit for last year of £3.9m. It would have done even better but for a tragic accident aboard the Gigante *1A drilling rig that killed one of its workers and resulted in the loss of the rig and other equipment. Luckily, in the latter case, the company was insured, thus mitigating the loss of income from the period May to October during which it was inactive. The loss of the rig was treated as a fixed asset disposal to the insurance underwriters, resulting in an exceptional profit of £1.46m to add to the £3.2m from business interruption insurance. That made for a total pre-tax profit of £3.9m on £4m sales. Now Gigante *1A is producing about 2,200 barrels per day, though this is expected to increase to perhaps double that within about three weeks. Also in store is the 'spudding' of a second well there, expected to produce minimum 5,000 bpd. Overall, Emerald estimates that it has about 350m barrels attributable to it there and it has also acquired other prospects The 'fever pitch' level of interest could result in a sale of its cash flow positive West Virginia licence areas, where in any case it has planned an extra US$1m eight well exploration programme.
| Market cap: | £36.6m |
| PE Forecast: | n/a |
| Share price: | 2.8p |
| LSE | £230.99m |
387.00p
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13.00p
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| Other company articles: |
| 02/11/2002 |
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