Tullow Oil plc (LON:TLW) confirmed production averaged 85,700 barrels of oil per day in the first quarter of 2017, which is at the top of the group’s target range for the whole year.
The oiler said it is sticking to its current guidance of 78,000 to 85,000 bopd for 2017.
The positive production stats will be welcomed by investors that backed the group’s US$750mln rights issue - yesterday Tullow revealed that 95% of the new shares were taken up. The rights issue was launched in March and was approved in early April.
Also, Tullow highlighted that a six-monthly redetermination of its reserves based lending was completed in March. Debt maturity was extended to April 2019. The company’s net debt was confirmed at US$4.6bn, leaving it with headroom and free cash totalling $1.2 bn prior to the rights issue.
Outgoing chief executive Aidan Heavey, who is moving over the chairman role, said: “as I hand over my role as CEO to Paul McDade, I am confident that Tullow has the financial and operational flexibility to prosper in 2017 and beyond."
He added: “This has been an exceptionally busy few months for Tullow as we agreed to farm down our assets to our partners in Uganda, made substantial changes to our board and launched a $750 million rights Issue.
“We have also been working hard on moving towards full field development in both Uganda and Kenya and have made good progress on the Jubilee turret remediation project and optimising production from the TEN field.”