LONDON (Alliance News) - Strong production growth and higher oil prices helped drive both Amerisur Resources PLC's profit and revenue growth during 2018, the company said Tuesday.
Amerisur produced 5,356 barrels of oil per day on average during the year, 10% higher year-on-year, and achieved an average oil price of USD64.8 per barrel, from USD50.0 in 2017.
This helped pretax profit surge to USD8.4 million from USD350,000, after a 28% rise in revenue to USD108.2 million.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation increased by 72% to USD34.0 million.
Amerisur does not yet pay dividends, but reiterated that it plans on doing so in future. Cash is "robust", the firm said, and it has no debt.
"2018 was a year of great achievement for Amerisur," said Chair Giles Clarke.
"We increased reserves significantly; we entered into a farm-out agreement with Oxy in the Putumayo, which will deliver a USD93.3 million exploration and appraisal campaign; we made a discovery at Indico-1X on CPO-5 from which we are now producing, taking the number of producing fields to three; we made a profit and generated free cash flow; and we exited the year in a strong financial position."
In the first quarter of 2019, Amerisur has produced an average of 4,600 barrels of oil per day.
The plan going ahead into 2019 is a USD35 million work programme for up to ten exploration and development wells across its CPO-5 and Putumayo assets in Colombia, targeting gross prospective resource of 145 million barrels of oil.
"The board looks forward to 2019 full of confidence. Production is growing and we have a fully-funded work programme of up to ten wells across CPO-5 in the Llanos Basin and the Putumayo," added Clarke.
Shares were 0.4% higher on Tuesday in early trade at a price of 13.90 pence each.