Circle Oil Profit Jumps On Strong Performance In Egypt And Morocco

LSE LONDON SOUTH EAST

Circle Oil Profit Jumps On Strong Performance In Egypt And Morocco
Fri, 20th Jun 2014

LONDON (Alliance News) – Circle Oil PLC Friday reported an increase in profit and revenue for the full year, buoyed by a strong performance from its operations in Egypt and Morocco.

The international oil and gas exploration development and production company, posted pretax profit of USD28.9 million for 2013, up from USD25.3 million in 2012, as revenue climbed 27% to USD93.3 million from USD73.3 million.

Circle attributed its strong performance to increased production and revenue from oil, gas and associated liquids sales in Egypt and gas sales in Morocco together with increased operating and net profitability.

It said the average gas price achieved in Morocco rose to USD10.34 per million standard cubic feet compared with USD9.40 a year earlier. However, the average oil price achieved in Egypt during the year dipped slightly to USD104.40 per barrel of oil compared with USD107.37 a year earlier.

Nonetheless, Circle Oil said its share of volume of oil sold from the North-West Gemsa permit in Egypt was 1.52 million barrels of oil up from 1.26 million barrels of oil, while the volume of gas sold from the Sebou permit in Morocco was 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas, a 51% increase over the 1.1 billion cubic feet of gas sold a year earlier.

Overall, total assets at the year-end amounted to USD307.9 million, up from USD260.9 million and comprised mainly oil and gas assets of USD227.5 million, USD42.3 million of trade and other receivables and cash at bank of USD37.9 million.

Circle said earlier this year it completed an initial field development programme in Egypt to bring its Al Amir SE and Geyad fields into maturity. The company said before undertaking further drilling it will now concentrate on understanding the reservoir-s behaviour with a newly developed dynamic reservoir model.

Looking ahead, Circle said it will use existing cash flow and senior debt facilities to grow the company. It said it will main focus continues to be the Middle East and North Africa, and it intends to add additional projects in the region to increase the company’s value.

Circle Oil shares were quoted down 0.5% at 22.25 pence Friday morning.

By Anthony Tshibangu; anthonytshibangu@alliancenews.com; @AnthonyAllNews