Mozambique Oil & Gas Industry: Thai PTTEP 2Q Net Profit Up 55%, Beats Forecast

The top Thailand oil and gas explorer, PTT Exploration and Production Pcl (PTTEP), who has recently stablisehd an office in Mozambique capital Maputo city due to its interests in Rovuma basin gas, has reported a 55 percent rise in second-quarter net profit on Thursday due to higher petroleum sales and firmer global oil prices.

PTTEP, the flagship upstream oil exploration business of state-controlled PTT Pcl, posted a April-June net profit of $560 million or 18.2 billion baht, higher than the average 14.2 billion baht ($446 million) forecast by 10 analysts polled by Reuters.

This compared with $362 million billion a year earlier.

Higher petroleum sales were mainly due to the acquisition of Hess Corp’s assets in Thailand and rising output from Montara field in Australia.

Analysts said sales will be higher in the second half as output from Zawtika field in Myanmar will come on stream in the third quarter.

The company holds 

PTTEP shares, valued at $20.8 billion on the Thai bourse, have risen 4 percent in the past 12 months, outperforming a 1.9 percent gain in the broad index. ($1 = 31.8300 Thai Baht)