Full-year losses narrow at Dublin-headquartered PetroNeft

Full-year losses narrowed at Dublin-headquartered oil and gas exploration firm PetroNeft in the 12 months to the end of December.

The Siberian-focused group reported a pretax loss of $8.37 million, as against a loss of $11.5 million in 2013 and a loss of $2.8 million in fiscal 2012.

The loss included a foreign exchange loss on intra-group loans of $2.4 million and costs of $5.6 million relating to the disposal of a subsidiary.

The company’s main assets are interests in Licence 61 and Licence 67, both of which are in the Tomsk Oblast in Russia.

Revenues for PetroNeft declined from $38.6 million to $19.1 million. However, turnover included revenues from oil sales for the period to July 3rd of $17.5 million only and income as operator of both Licence 61 and Licence 67 in Russia of $1.7 million.

The farmout of Licence 61 to Oil India was completed in July 2014. The total investment by Oil India will be up to $85 million and the farmout left PetroNeft debt free. The company said it produced 728,826 barrels of oil from Licence 61 in 2014, down from 870,965 barrels last year. The decline was in part due to there being no new wells drilled between February 2013 and late 2014. Drilling has recommenced at the licence with “significant product growth” expected this year, the group said.

"The farmout gave us a strong industry partner seeking to build a strategic position in Russia as well as the financial resources to develop the significant potential of Licence 61. We are currently producing from less than 15 per cent of our reserve base and the substantial investment in infrastructure made in recent years leaves us well placed to deliver significant and profitable growth now that we have satisfactorily resolved the funding challenges of recent years," said PetroNeft's chief executive Dennis Francis.