Vaalco Energy swings to loss in first quarter; ups production outlook

(Alliance News) - Vaalco Energy Inc on Friday said the first quarter of 2026 represented an "inflection point", as it posted a swing to a loss amid softer net revenue.

The Canada and Africa-focused hydrocarbon explorer reported a pretax loss of USD89.4 million in the first quarter of 2026, swung from USD23.8 million in profit a year prior.

Hampering earnings was a 43% decline in net revenue to USD62.6 million from USD110.3 million. Vaalco also reported a USD70.6 million derivative instruments loss, surging from a loss of USD74,000.

Net revenue interest production was 15,110 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down 15% from 17,764 barrels.

Vaalco reported sales of 1.1 million barrels of oil equivalent, down 36% from 1.7 million barrels.

The realised commodity price per barrel of oil equivalent also fell, down 32% at USD57.21 from USD64.27.

Vaalco declared a second quarter dividend of USD0.0625, unchanged from a year prior.

Looking ahead to the full-year Vaalco upped its production outlook. The company guides working interest production between 22,050 and 24,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day. For NRI it anticipates producing between 17,400 and 19,450 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

At its full-year results in March, it had guided working interest production between 20,100 and 22,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and NRI production between 16,100 and 17,950 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

For 2025, Vaalco reported working interest average daily production volumes of 21,160 barrels of oil equivalent, while for NRI, average daily production volumes were 16,556 barrels of oil equivalent.

Shares in Vaalco energy were down 3.4% at 430.00 pence on Friday morning in London.

"Operationally, we are delivering as expected, with strong results from our drilling programs and capital investments," said Chief Executive George Maxwell

He added: "We believe that Q2 2026 will be much stronger financially with additional lift-offs and we will see continued improvement in the second half of 2026 and into 2027. We believe that the first quarter was an inflection point."

By Christopher Ward, Alliance News reporter

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