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OSLO, May 7 (Reuters) - Norway's Aker BP, partlyowned by oil major BP, beat quarterly earnings forecastson Monday, helped by record output and higher oil prices, andsaid it may drill more wells this year than previously planned.
The company, controlled by a Norwegian billionaire KjellInge Roekke, is focusing more on developing its existingbusiness after growing via a series of acquisitions, includinglast year’s purchase of Hess assets for $2 billion.
Thanks to the latest purchase, which included a stake in theValhall field, the company reported record first-quarterproduction of 158,600 barrels of oil equivalents per day(boepd), up from 145,300 boepd in the same quarter a year ago.
Its January-March operating profit (EBIT) was $472 million,compared with the average forecast of $449 million in a Reuterspoll of analysts, and $273 million a year ago.
The company repeated plans to increase full-year dividendsby $100 million in 2019 from $450 million this year.
At 1000 GMT, Aker BP shares were up 6.4 percent at 282Norwegian crowns.
Chief Executive Karl Johnny Hersvik said the company stillsaw "significant and interesting" acquisition targets on theNorwegian continental shelf, although the competition hadincreased since a year ago.
Meanwhile, the company will step efforts to find resourcesitself by drilling 12-14 exploration wells this year, up fromthe previously planned 12.
Aker BP said it had postponed two wells in the Barents Seauntil 2019, but would drill more wells around its recent 30-60million boe Frosk discovery south of Alvheim field.
The company repeated its financial guidance for 2018,including a plan to spend $350 million on exploration, but sawrates in longer-term rig contracts going up.
"There is a bit of cost inflation ... The long-end of thosecontracts are turning upwards," Hersvik said.
DISPUTE WITH STATOIL
Aker BP expects to resolve its dispute with majoritystate-owned Statoil over development of the so-called North ofAlvheim and Askja-Krafla (NOAKA) area in the North Sea by theend of 2018.
Aker BP wants to develop a group of discoveries containingabout 500 million boe by using a manned processing platform,combined with offshore wind turbines to provide power, whileStatoil wants to have two unmanned processing platforms.
The companies have to get an approval from the governmentfor the project, which could be the largest development offNorway after Statoil's Johan Castberg Arctic oilfield.
Consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in March it expectedstart-up of the NOAKA project to be delayed by one year until2023 due to the dispute.(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, Editing by Ole Petter Skonnord andMark Potter)
