Having seen its shares slump in recent weeks despite no tangible newsflow North Sea oil producer Hurricane Energy (HUR:AIM) advanced 14.9% to 24.8p this morning on a positive operational update.
The company reported strong output from its Lancaster Early Production System. In the third quarter of 2019 the company produced 15,400 barrels of oil per day (bopd), compared with guidance of 9,000 bopd, and in the fourth quarter 11,800 bopd against guidance of 11,000 bopd, as commissioning activities and well tests had some impact.
Between production commencing in May 2019 and the turn of the year, the company produced 3m barrels of oil in total, generating revenue of $170m and ending the year with cash of $157m.
The company is planning appraisal wells on its Lincoln discovery and a potential production well at Lancaster in 2020 although these plans have yet to be firmed up.
Chief executive Robert Trice says: ‘We note the recent weakness in the company's share price and I can confirm that we are not aware of any subsurface, operational or commercial reasons that would have caused such decline.
‘The production performance of the Lancaster EPS wells is above our base case expectations and we remain on target to provide an update at the Capital Markets Day in March whilst continuing to make progress towards the next operational steps for our portfolio.’
The company reports its 2019 results in full on 19 March 2020.
