Oil and gas firm BG Group warned that turmoil in Egypt would hit its output this year and next, weighing on future earnings and sending its shares plunging 15 per cent.

BG said in a surprise statement yesterday production this year would be as much as 11 per cent lower than analysts were expecting, and potentially 7 per cent behind 2013 output. It also cut its 2015 production forecast by as much as 14 per cent.

The developments add up to the latest in a series of disappointments from BG and heap pressure on a mostly new management team. Chief executive Chris Finlayson took over a year ago and financial director Simon Lowth joined in December. Over the past 18 months, BG has cut its output forecasts three times, including abandoning a goal to produce 1 million boed (barrels of oil equivalent per day) by 2015. – (Reuters)