Hurricane Profit Triples, Signs Iran Oil Deal
18:55 EDT Tuesday, May 06, 2003
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Kazakhstan oil producer and refiner Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. said on Tuesday its first-quarter profit tripled as oil production climbed amid sharply higher world crude prices.
Hurricane also said it signed a deal with Iran's national oil company to swap a large volume of crude from its Kumkol field in the central Asian country for Iranian light oil in the Persian Gulf.
The Canadian-based firm, which is planning to change its name to PetroKazakhstan Inc. to reflect the site of all its assets, earned $68.2 million, or 83 cents a share, up from year-earlier $23.1 million, or 28 cents a share.
That beat an average estimate of 80 cents a share among analysts polled by Thomson First Call.
Cash flow, giving a glimpse into an oil company's ability to fund development, surged 150 percent to $89 million, or $1.08 a share, from $36 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-before quarter. Revenues were $247 million, up from $143 million in the first quarter of 2002.
Hurricane joined a host of global oil companies pumping out sharply higher first-quarter profits, driven by a 55 percent jump in oil prices as markets feared supply disruptions before the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The company's first-quarter oil production increased 14 percent to a near-record 140,765 barrels a day.
It said transportation problems -- which included unscheduled shutdowns of Black Sea ports, due mainly to bad weather -- restricted crude oil exports during the quarter. But Hurricane said it would still reach its targeted average annual output of 165,000 bpd.
As a result of transportation problems, Hurricane said crude shipments for export fell to 58,077 bpd in the first quarter from 81,730 bpd in the fourth quarter in 2002.
The transportation issues were expected to improve during the current quarter, it said.
Hurricane said it could swap up to 7.33 million barrels of oil a year under the new agreement with the trading arm of National Iranian Oil Co.
Starting as early as July, Hurricane will ship its Kumkol crude by rail to Tehran from Shymkent, site of its refinery, via Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
The Tehran unloading terminal needs "minor" upgrades, which Hurricane said would be financed and completed by NIOC's refining arm and Iran's national railway company.
Hurricane said it would be compensated for the higher quality of Kumkol compared to Iranian Light oil.
Meanwhile, the company's 177-km (110-mile) KAM pipeline was 88 percent complete at the end of April and was on schedule for commissioning at the end of the second quarter in 2003. The pipeline will give Hurricane access to a new rail-loading facility at Dzhusaly, southwest of its Kumkol production area.
Hurricane shares closed down 5 Canadian cents at C$16.20 in Toronto, down 1.7 percent since the start of the year. That is a better performance than the Toronto Stock Exchange's oil and gas group, which has fallen nearly 3 percent during the same period. |
