Rosneft slightly boosts oil production in H1, gas production by 13% - Sechin
MOSCOW. Aug 14 (Interfax) - Rosneft in H1 2015 slightly increased oil production and gas production rose by 13%, Rosneft CEO told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a working meeting.
"H1, despite, as you said, a quite difficult macroeconomic situation connected with the crises on foreign markets, the fall in prices for hydrocarbons, the company has stabilized work," he said.
"We are comparing it with H1 of last year - with a slight rise in oil production and an increase for gas by about 13%. Refining also had a slight rise," Sechin said.
According to a report to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for H1 2014, Rosneft produced 26.68 billion cubic meters (bcm) and 753 million barrels of oil and gas condensate.
"We will publish more precise parameters in the framework of our reports soon," he said.
Sechin said that the company also managed to increase drilling volumes. "We are paying special attention to the success of prospecting and exploration drilling. We finished 15 wells in Q1, the success of drilling was 95%. This speaks to the fact that our geologists are working very well," he said.
"We managed to raise the amount of implemented synergies for 2013-2014, which exceeded 112 billion rubles," the company's head said.
He said that all this was reflected in the report of Goldman Sachs, which was dedicated to the results of work of Russian oil companies for Q2 2015. "They raised the recommendations for Rosneft shares from "hold" to "buy", having noted the target price of up to $5.6. I recall that the current quotations are within up to $3.7 per share. This is a serious signal for the market," Sechin said. "They estimated the capability of the company to stably generate a high cash flow. For 2014, they set $14.5 billion. Their forecast for 2015, with the condition of a price reduction, is around $8 billion. This is the highest result among comparable Russian and international companies."
