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(Alliance News) - Shares in Caspian Sunrise PLC rose 60% early Friday in London, after the company released its 2022 results, allowing the stock to resume trading on AIM.
The Kazakhstan-focused oil and gas exploration and production company swung to a pretax profit of USD12.3 million in 2022 from a loss of USD4.8 million in 2021, as revenue nearly doubled to USD42.9 million from USD25.0 million.
Caspian said the pretax profit and revenue both were new records for the company. It had USD3.7 million in cash on December 31, up from just USD400,000 a year before.
Caspian said aggregate production was 792,284 barrels in 2022, up 48% from 533,857 in 2021. Reserves held mostly steady. P1 reserves stood at 14.3 million barrels on December 31, down from 15.1 million a year before. P2 reserves were 25.5 million barrels, down from 26.3 million.
Production currently is running at 2,000 barrels of oil per day, Caspian said.
Shares had been suspended since Monday, after Caspian missed last Friday's six-month deadline, imposed by the AIM market, for the release of its annual results.
The stock was up 60% to 4.40 pence early Friday. It had fallen by 26% last Friday as the company suspended future dividend payments and warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to crimp revenue. This is due to large discounts on oil sold through the Russian pipeline network, as a result of sanctions.
On Friday, Caspian confirmed it was suspending dividend payments, which had started only in November of last year.
"With no signs of an end to the adverse impact of the Ukraine war, we need to base our dividend policy on what the group can reasonably afford to pay without materially detracting from our principal purpose of increasing shareholder value by the continued development of our oil & gas assets," Caspian explained.
"Therefore, until either we increase production with MJF shallow wells 141 & 142 resuming production or deep well 802 commencing production, or until the proceeds from the conditional sale of 50% of the Caspian Explorer are received, the board has reluctantly decided to suspend dividends payments for the remainder of the year."
The Caspian Explorer is a drilling vessel specially designed to operate in the shallow northern Caspian Sea. It was built in 2010 and 2011 and started operating in 2012. Caspian Sunrise had bought it for USD3.7 million and last month agreed to sell a 50% interest in it for USD22.5 million.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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