Statoil ASA is lowering its capital expenditure guidance for 2016 by another $1 billion after taking a third-quarter adjusted net loss of $261 million, down from adjusted earnings of $445 million a year earlier.
The Norwegian firm’s planned capex is now $11 billion including an exploration guidance reduction to $1.5 billion from $1.8 billion. The firm’s production guidance remains unchanged, and expected organic production growth is 1%/year during 2014-17.
Statoil recorded third-quarter equity production of 1.805 million boe/d, down from 1.909 million boe/d during same period in 2015. The reduction was mainly due to planned maintenance and deferral of gas sales, the firm says. Excluding those elements and divestments, the underlying production growth was 5% compared with last year’s third quarter.
As of Sept. 30, Statoil had completed 21 exploration wells, with adjusted exploration expenses in the quarter of $581 million, up from $412 million in third-quarter 2015.
Statoil at the end of the second quarter also reported plans to shed $1 billion in capex (OGJ Online, July 27, 2016).