Tullow Oil Production Swings to Loss on Impairment, Revenue Up

Tullow Oil PLC (TLW.LN) Wednesday reported a 46% increase in revenue during the first half of the year but swung to a pretax loss as a result of an impairment charge and higher costs during the period.

The independent oil and gas exploration and production group's pretax loss during the six months ended June 30, was $518.8 million compared with a profit of $24.1 million a year earlier. The company incurred an impairment charge on property, plant and equipment of $641.7 million in the half year compared with a nil charge the year before. Also finance costs during the period rose to $179.1 million compared with $69.6 million during the first half of 2016.

Tullow's half-year revenue was, however, higher at $787.5 million as a result of increased production, compared with $540.6 million a year earlier. Working interest production averaged 82,400 barrel of oil equivalent per day or boepd, an increase of 41% for the period's 58,400 boepd, it said.

Tullow said its 2017 capex guidance has been reduced to $0.4 billion from $0.5 billion, adding that it expects it to reduce to $0.3 billion on completion of the Uganda farm-down.

-Write to Razak Musah Baba at razak.baba@wsj.com; Twitter: @Raztweet

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 26, 2017 03:13 ET (07:13 GMT)