Noble Energy returns to quarterly profit

U.S. oil and gas company Noble Energy returned to quarterly profit and saw an increase in revenues in the last quarter of 2017 when compared to the year-before period.

Fourth quarter 2017 net income attributable to Noble Energy totaled $494 million compared to a loss of $252 million in the year-before period, the company said on Tuesday.

Noble’s revenues increased in the fourth quarter 2017 to $1.2 billion from $1.01 billion in the same period of 2016.

During the fourth quarter, the company invested $579 million in its upstream operations and funded $76 million for onshore midstream assets. Approximately 80 percent was deployed to the U.S. onshore plays and 17 percent was spent in Israel, primarily for Leviathan development.

Currently, development of the Leviathan project is approximately 40 percent complete. Construction of the production platform is underway, preparations to mobilize the drilling rig started and the project remains on budget and schedule with first gas sales anticipated by the end of 2019.

Total company sales volumes for the fourth quarter 2017 were 380 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBoe/d), an increase of 25 MBoe/d from the third quarter 2017 and up nearly 50 MBoe/d from the fourth quarter of last year.

Volumes for the fourth quarter of 2017 were impacted by approximately 7 MBoe/d as a result of winter storms and third-party facility impacts in the company’s Texas operations. U.S. onshore volumes were up approximately 40 percent from the fourth quarter of 2016 while combined sales volumes from the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa were down approximately 20 percent due to natural field decline.

In Israel, net volumes were slightly lower than the fourth quarter of last year, driven by the impact of planned maintenance work in October 2017.

The company’s capital expenditures for 2018 are expected to total between $2.7 and $2.9 billion, with nearly 70 percent allocated to the U.S. onshore program and over 25 percent to the Eastern Mediterranean. Full-year sales volumes, at the midpoint of the company’s expected range, are approximately 12 percent higher than 2017.

Also on Tuesday, Noble Energy announced total proved reserves of 1.965 billion barrels of oil equivalent as of December 31, 2017, a net increase of 528 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBoe) versus year-end 2016.

In related news, Noble Energy on Monday announced the signing of agreements to sell significant quantities of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields off Israel to Dolphinus Holdings to supply gas in Egypt.

Offshore Energy Today Staff