CNOOC revenue falls 42% on oil price decline

By Fu Chenghao  |   2009-4-30  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

REVENUE at China's top offshore oil producer, CNOOC Ltd, tumbled 41.9 percent in the first quarter as crude prices dropped sharply, the firm said yesterday.

Its revenue totaled 13.95 billion yuan (US$2.04 billion) in the first quarter, against 24.03 billion yuan a year earlier, Hong Kong-listed CNOOC said after the market closed yesterday. It didn't give a quarterly figure for net profit.

Its revenue dropped despite the firm raising output.

CNOOC's average realized oil prices plunged 53.2 percent to US$41.56 a barrel in the reporting period from a year earlier, in line with a sharp fall in global oil prices.

The company produced 468,535 barrels of crude oil per day in the first quarter, a 19.7-percent increase year on year. The total net daily production for oil and gas increased 15 percent to 566,860 barrels of oil equivalent.

The Beijing-based company's capital expenditure rose 23.1 percent to 7.51 billion yuan in the first three months.

Chairman and CEO Fu Chengyu said CNOOC, a listed unit of China National Offshore Oil Corp, achieved "exciting progress" in production growth and exploration activities in the first quarter.