Australia’s Santos reported a record sales revenue in the first half of this year on the back of high liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices.
The independent LNG producer said on Thursday that its January-June sales revenue rose 85 percent to $3.8 billion, while it reported a record free cash flow of $1.7 billion, up 199 percent on the corresponding period.
In the second quarter, sales revenue reached $1.87 billion, almost flat when compared to the prior quarter and an increase of some 74 percent when compared to $1.08 billion in the same period last year.
Also, the firm said its second-quarter production of 25.5 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) was slightly lower than the first quarter, primarily due to expected natural field decline at Bayu-Undan and major planned maintenance outages at PNG LNG, Darwin LNG, and the Cooper Basin.
Santos is now a bigger company following the completion of the merger deal with PNG-focused Oil Search in December.
The Australian LNG player said its average realized LNG price of $14.66 per MMBtu in the second quarter increased when compared to $13.77 per MMBtu in the prior quarter.
It almost rose two times from $7.52 per MMBtu the firm logged in the second quarter of last year.
The average realized LNG price was higher than the prior quarter reflecting the linkage of sales contracts to an improving lagged Japan Customs-cleared Crude (JCC) price, partially offset by lower average JKM spot prices, Santos said.
