China's offshore oil and gas specialist CNOOC Ltd reported on Wednesday a 15.2 percent fall in third-quarter oil and gas sales revenue, hurt by weaker prices, but expected a cautious rebound in oil prices to lift fourth-quarter revenue. Releasing its unaudited operational results, CNOOC said oil and gas sales in July-September fell to 30.7 billion yuan ($4.54 billion), as total net production fell 7.7 percent to 117.7 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The state-controlled firm said its realized oil prices during the quarter fell 13.5 percent from a year earlier to $42.26 a barrel and its natural gas prices dropped 18.6 percent in the same period. "To cope with the low oil price environment, company continued to lower costs, enhance efficiency and cut capital expenditure," the firm said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
During a media call, Chief Financial Officer Zhong Hua said the company remained cautiously optimistic about the final quarter of the year as oil prices appeared to have bottomed out, with prices likely to hold above $50 a barrel. "The market environment will fare better in the fourth quarter, especially versus the first quarter," said Zhong, adding that the company will be prepared to revise up capital spending and start new projects if oil prices have a stronger rebound.
A fall in third-quarter production, versus a small increase in the first half of the year, was mostly because of output declines from two overseas oil projects, Long Lake in Canada and Buzzard in the North Sea, said Zhong. Buzzard was shut for maintenance in September. CNOOC's Hong Kong-listed share prices are up 30 percent so far in 2016, outperforming the broader Hang Seng Index, which has gained 6.5 percent in the same period. The company reported in August a net loss of 7.74 billion yuan for the first half of the year.