BG On Track Despite North Sea Issues

Production volumes were hurt by maintenance in the North Sea but BG's strong earnings performance reinforces our thesis

Allen Good 25 October, 2011 | 4:58PM
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BG Group (BG.) reported third-quarter earnings that were largely in line with our expectations. The liquefied natural gas segment continued to benefit from strong demand and pricing in Asia and South America. To capitalise, BG diverted 89% of its LNG cargoes from the United States, an increase from 78% last year and 84% in the second quarter. Given the strong performance to date and continued robust markets, management increased full-year LNG operating profit guidance to $2.4 billion from $1.9 billion-$2.2 billion. The strong performance reinforces our thesis that BG is well positioned to opportunistically capture value through its flexible LNG portfolio.

s we suspected, production volumes were hurt by continued maintenance on the North Sea, including a slowed startup of new facilities at Buzzard. However, with maintenance now complete and Buzzard back on line, BG's North Sea net production is 90 mboe per day higher than it was in September. Buzzard is currently producing 215 mboe/d with plans to achieve production at capacity of 225 mboe/d. Achieving full-year guidance of modest growth will rely on continued reliability of North Sea volumes.

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Allen Good  Allen Good is a senior stock analyst covering the oil and gas industries.

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