The Houston-based Apache Corporation has released its first quarter 2003 earnings totaling $337.5 million, or $2.10 per diluted share. Without the cumulative effect of a change in accounting principle regarding asset retirement obligations, the company earned $311 million, or $1.94 per diluted common share.
Net income for the first quarter exceeded the full year's totals for all but three of Apache’s 48-year history, according to a company press release. Apache generated $644 million of cash flow in the 1Q of 2003.
In Egypt, Apache completed 30 out of 34 wells for 88 percent success rate, the gross operated production for the quarter averaged 88,500 barrels a day and 235 million cubic feet of gas a day, disclosed Bob Dye, vice president of Investor Relations for the corporation.
“I talked to Egypt this morning, and we hit a new record on gross operating production yesterday at 92,599 barrels a day,” he added. “We continue to have active conversations with the Egyptians about obtaining a gas sales contract for the West Med gas. We're hopeful that we can secure a contract by year end.”
Regarding the prospect in offshore Egypt, Apache CEO Steven Farris stated that the well is a dry hole. “We drilled the well to about 12,000 feet. We encountered sand and the sand was very good sand and it was wet.” The company intends to reassess whether that is a viable prospect before it pushes additional exploration in the offshore west mid concession in the shallow water.
“The fact of the matter is we could… certainly spend more money in Egypt if we choose to do that. What we really want to do is make sure that we do not get costs ahead of our activities, so we continue to watch cost very closely in terms of service costs [and] acquisitions,” he said.
“We are currently discussing different contract terms with the government-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) and we're not a long way apart. It is in the foreign contractors’ and the country of Egypt's best interests to weigh the way that the concessions are set up to keep the gas in country or sell the gas at a higher press in Land G because what happens is they are exporting their raw materials when they go into the Land G market because they are not part of the L and G train.” Farris added that “it takes about three years to do this development and we're talking in DCK ranges, production ranges from 250 million a day to about 400 million a day.”
Apache Corporation is a large gas and oil independent with core operations in the United States, Canada, Egypt, the United Kingdom North Sea and Western Australia. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
