14 November 2014, LONDON – Oil explorer Soco International lowered its full-year production guidance to 13,300-13,800 barrels of oil per day on higher-than-expected field shutdowns to move its drilling rigs.
The London-listed energy company had previously targeted production of 14,000-15,000 boepd for the year.
Soco said it expected capital expenditure for 2014 to come in at the top end of its $160-170 million forecast as it has sped up some drilling work.
The company also said revenue from producing assets in Vietnam were high enough, even at lower oil prices, to fund its exploration work and to continue returning cash to shareholders.
But if crude prices remain low, that would hurt the premium it gets for next year’s term contracts for crude oil from Vietnam, the company said in a statement.
Soco said crude sale contracts to December would realize a premium slightly above $4 per barrel to the price of brent crude. Shares of the company fell as much as 2.8 percent to 324.8 pence in early trade on the London Stock Exchange, before paring losses to trade at 326.4 pence at 0902 GMT.
*Karolin Schaps & Abhiram Nandakumar; Jason Neely & Feroze Jamal – Reuters