(Alliance News) - Valeura Energy Inc on Wednesday reported a narrowed loss for the first half of 2020 despite a decline in revenue as some costs fell.
For the six months to the end of June, the Calgary, Canada-based natural gas producer reported a pretax loss of USD2.1 million from USD3.7 million the year before.
This was due to a fall in overall expenses to USD6.5 million from USD9.3 million, namely through reductions in share-based compensations, lack of transaction costs and a gain from settlement income.
In June a settlement was agreed by Valeura and Norwegian petroleum refiner Equinor where the former released the latter of their future obligation to fund their share of decommissioning obligations.
However, revenue declined by 20% to USD4.5 million from USD5.6 million the prior year, due to a fall in petroleum and natural gas sales on reduced customer demand for natural gas amid lower industrial activity by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Average production for the interim period was 700 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down 4.6% from 734 barrels the year before. The average realised price for natural gas was USD6.38 per million cubic feet, down 4.1% from USD6.65 the prior year.
"Despite the challenging circumstances the global oil and gas industry has faced during the last several months, our strategy remains intact and poised to deliver value for shareholders. We are resuming activities to improve the efficiency of our conventional gas business and are focused on increasing production to maximise value. We have a unique opportunity to layer inorganic growth into our strategy and are actively pursuing opportunities to build production growth from new sources," said Chief Executive Officer Sean Guest.
Shares in Valeura Energy were down 2.4% at 20.0 pence on Wednesday in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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