The collapsed oil price in the December quarter has halved Buru Energy’s cash take for the period.
Cash flows from oil production in that quarter were $1.4 million, compared to $2.7m in the previous period — when global oil prices hit their peak in 2018.
Buru (ASX:BRU) produces from its Ungani field in the Canning Basin in Western Australia. The oil is trucked to Wydham Port and from there sold.
The company secured a price of $108 ($US77) a barrel for an 74,400 barrel shipment on October 21.
But that sank to an estimated $69 ($US49) for a 70,000 barrel cargo on December 31.
Buru gets the Brent price for its oil, the marker for North Sea oil. That hit a 2018 nadir on December 25 at $US49.93.
The company produced a total of about 91,000 barrels, half of which is Buru’s share, at an average of about 1,000 barrels a day from four operating wells.
One had been shut down for most of the period for ‘sidetracking’ operations — when a secondary well is drilled away from the original.
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The December quarter was also when the wet season began in northern Australia.
Buru said ‘weather-proofing’ of its access road meant there had been no interruptions from rain so far.
Higher development and exploration costs across the quarter, as well as a $2.9m pay-down of debt to Alcoa, meant the company hit negative cash flows of $7m.
It also got a cash bump of $51.3m in the prior quarter by selling a stake in the Ungani field to Roc Oil, which wasn’t repeated in the December period.
Buru shares were flat at 21.5c.