Don't worry ESV should see $ 45 - 50 soon!
The sector is looking good!
See BP Amoco's plans as below!
Next year will be a party as well!
Wednesday July 12, 4:15 pm Eastern Time
BP Amoco sees big hit in American oil, gas production
By Paul Thomasch
NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) - In its own version of the British invasion, BP Amoco Plc on Wednesday mapped out plans to become a top star in North American oil and gas production following its takeovers of two leading U.S. energy companies.
Sir John Browne, chief executive of London-based BP Amoco (NYSE:BPA - news) (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BPA.L), told analysts in New York the company is in the process of developing a string of projects stretching from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond to natural gas fields in Trinidad in the Caribbean.
The plan builds on the company's already sizable foothold on this side of the Atlantic.
In recent years, it has spent billions to acquire U.S. oil companies Amoco and Arco and will soon close a deal giving it the 18 percent of Vastar Resources Inc. (NYSE:VRI - news) it doesn't already own.
It also follows Browne's announcement in London on Tuesday that BP Amoco will boost gross capital spending to an average of $13.5 billion a year over the next three years. That compares to an average of about $12 billion over the past three years.
The additional capital comes as BP Amoco is pressing to increase oil production by four to five percent and natural gas production by eight to 10 percent annually over the next few years.
BP Amoco made clear on Wednesday that its relying, in part, on its ambitious project in Trinidad to support its natural gas plans.
Exploration and production chief Dick Olver said the company now holds stakes in eight of the 10 top fields in Trinidad, where it expects to more than double current production of 1.1 billion cubic feet a day over the next seven years.
Olver also said the company was banking on natural gas from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, where it built its position with the Arco acquisition.
``Perhaps the much awaited natural gas age is within our sights,'' Olver said, noting the company is ``aggressively planning'' a pipeline which would carry natural gas from Alaska to Alberta, Canada and into the United States.
He said while a route had not yet been established for the line -- which could be running in another six or seven years -- it appeared for now that it was a better alternative than converting the gas to liquid and shipping it overseas.
While BP Amoco is increasingly shifting toward natural gas production -- it will account for 40 percent of it's overall production within three years -- it is also looking at big oil projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
``This is a high growth area by any measure,'' Olver said, adding that BP Amoco now holds interest in nine of 10 largest deepwater fields.
Its share of those discoveries now totals 3.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 500 million of which were added in the past year.
With the acquisition of Vastar, Olver said in a prepared statement, BP Amoco will be the biggest lease-holder in the area, with 20 percent of the acreage so far under license.
In a development group of fields around its around its Atlantis project, Olver noted the company could uncover as much as one billion barrels of oil equivalent, well above earlier estimates of about 600 million barrels.
After the presentation, American Depositary Shares of BP Amoco were down 1-3/8 at 55-15/16 on the New York Stock Exchange. |
