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By Isla Binnie and Jose ElĂas RodrĂguez
MADRID, July 23 (Reuters) - Spain's Repsol posted a
net loss and wrote down $1.5 billion in assets on Thursday as it
presented new expectations for oil and gas prices, following
most peers in lowering its projections.
The demand-sapping COVID-19 health crisis has piled pressure
on a sector already hurt by oil prices that have been dragged
down by tension over supply and a shift to low-carbon energy
sources.
BP, Shell and Eni have all written
down the value of assets on their balance sheets recently.
Repsol said it now expected Brent crude oil prices
to average $59.60 per barrel at today's prices between 2020 and
2050. It had previously forecast Brent crude to reach $87 per
barrel by 2035, adjusting for inflation, higher than most of its
rivals' headline numbers.
The write-down was based on lower price assumptions for 2020
and 2021 - of $43 and $49 per barrel respectively.
A company spokesman said the longer-term change was entirely
due to the new calculation being based on current prices.
Different inflation baselines and timelines are used to
estimate the direction of oil prices, but Repsol's change leaves
Equinor an outlier, with its forecast $80 a barrel in
2030, in 2019 prices.
Repsol said it would buy back shares and present a new plan
in November based on a goal to reduce carbon emissions to net
zero by 2050, after posting a quarterly loss of 1.997 billion
euro ($2.3 billion), which came in better than analysts had
expected in adjusted terms.
The company revised down its gas price outlook for 2020 to
$2 per million British thermal units, from $3.
Provisions brought the total write-down to 1.44 billion
euros.
The company burned cash, with a negative free cash flow of
217 million euros, but said it expected cash flow from
operations of 3.6 billion euros this year.
($1 = 0.8629 euros)
(Reporting by Isla Binnie and Jose ElĂas RodrĂguez and Emelia
Sithole-Matarise; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
