Cairn cashing in on North Sea

Cairn Energy’s focus on major North Sea projects has paid off as the Edinburgh-based oil and gas explorer moved back into the black.

The group holds stakes in Premier Oil’s new Catcher project and Enquest’s Kraken scheme, both of which began producing their first oil late last year.

Publishing its full-year results yesterday, Cairn said the projects would add an estimated 17,000-20,000 barrels of oil a day to its portfolio in 2018, with ongoing project commissioning on both fields expected to be completed during the first half.

Full capacity production is expected to be achieved by mid-year, with peak net production to Cairn of 25,000 barrels per day, delivering “significant cash flow” for reinvestment.

The group, which has benefited from a partial recovery in the oil price, posted a pretax profit from continuing operations of $256.4 million (£183.7m) for 2017, compared with a loss of $151.5m the year before.

Chief executive Simon Thomson said: “With first oil production from its North Sea developments, Cairn continues to deliver a strong and balanced business with a growing production base supporting further development and a multi-well exploration programme offering significant growth potential. The SNE field in Senegal is now fullyappraised and the joint venture is targeting government approval of the exploitation plan by the end of this year.

“The company continues to maintain balance sheet strength and financial flexibility as we focus on creating, adding and realising value for shareholders from a portfolio of attractive exploration, development and production assets,” he added.