LONDON (Alliance News) - Oilex Ltd Monday said its loss was significantly wider in the first half of its current financial after booking a number of impairments against its exploration and development assets, and said its programmes on the Cambay and Bhandut fields are both suffering delays.
The producing oil and gas company operating in India said its pretax loss in the six months to the end of 2015 widened to AUD23.3 million from the AUD3.1 million loss a year earlier as the company's small amount of revenue fell to AUD166,459 from AUD232,992.
The main cause for the wider loss was an AUD11.6 million impairment booked against Oilex's exploration and evaluation assets, a AUD3.5 million impairment against its development assets and a rise in exploration expenditure to AUD4.1 million from AUD1.0 million in 2014.
Other income dropping to AUD758,000 from AUD6.6 million a year earlier also contributed to the wider loss, alongside higher administrative costs and a rise in other expenses.
Revenue in the year fell due to lower oil prices and because net production fell to 1,104 barrels of oil per day from 2,588 barrels a day a year earlier, partly offset by gas production amounting to 2,008 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Oilex was not producing any gas in the first half of the last financial year.
Oil production fell mainly because the C-77H well on the Cambay field only began recommencing production in December, whilst various workovers also reduced production rates, it said.
Workovers on the Cambay-19z, Cambay-20 and Cambay-77H were completed in the first half of the financial year.
A work programme to drill two new wells, Cambay-78H and Cambay-80H, has been delayed whilst the company continues to try and source funds it is owed from Zeta Resources Ltd in relation to the capital raising in 2015.
"The company has had a number of constructive meetings with its joint venture partner to resolve the outstanding joint venture receivable amounts, the workover campaign, rescheduling the drilling of Cambay-78H and Cambay-80H wells, and the joint venture partner's participation in these wells. While these negotiations continue, various activities for the Cambay project will be delayed," said Oilex.
At the Bhandut field in India, Oilex said the Bhandut-3 well and associated gas production facilities were ready to begin operations at the end of 2015, when the buyer of the gas was supposed to have finished building the gas pipeline so Oilex could start delivering gas to the customer.
However, that buyer has not completed the pipeline by that deadline and Oilex said it is now expected to be ready sometime this month.
Oilex shares were down 6.5% to 0.561 pence per share on Monday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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