RECORD production from WA’s Stag field has provided a fillip for Santos Ltd’s balance sheet for 1999.
The company reports that for the full fiscal it achieved record sales of $944.5 million – an increase of 22.8 per cent over previous revenue.
At the same time production volume increased by 7.9 per cent and sales by 7.5 per cent.
This trend was maintained during the fourth quarter last year when sales revenue increased by 31.7 per cent to a quarterly record of $286.6 million.
Santos managing director Ross Adler attributed the increase in sales to record production from Stag, oil production reaching a five-year high, the extraordinary level of oil prices and the increase in gas sales of almost 10 per cent compared with the previous year.
This will be assisted by the company’s discovery of a new onshore gas field in the Victorian section of the Otway Basin.
Exploration wildcat well Penryn 1 has intersected a 20 metre gross gas column in the Cretaceous Waarre sandstone at a depth of 1,673 metres.
The Santos-owned well is being cased and suspended as a gas producer.
The well is located 2.4 kilometres southeast of the Fenton Creek 1 gas discovery well and three kilometres north of the recently completed Heytesbury gas plant.
Santos commenced its first direct sale of gas in Victoria in July 1999 following the commencement of gas production from the Heytesbury facility.
