Coastal Energy enjoyed a successful year exploring for, and producing, oil and gas in Thailand. Bolstered by a full-quarter's output from its B platform at the recently discovered Bua Ban North field, total (offshore oil and onshore gas) production in 2011's last quarter increased to 14,508 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), compared with 7,552 boepd in 2010's corresponding period. Yet the shares remain undemandingly rated.
Towards end-2011, the company drilled a sequence of successful appraisal and development wells at the Bua Ban North A and B platforms – this showed that the two fields are in fact connected. One horizontal well produced at a substantial rate of some 3,000 boepd, which encouraged Coastal to drill more horizontal wells to further boost production and increase recovery. Drilling and connecting a number of additional wells at Bua Ban North since the year-end has increased average offshore first quarter production to 21,100 boepd. Although, last month, Coastal suffered a setback after no hydrocarbons were found at the Bua Ban South A-03 site. Nevertheless, overall drilling successes helped to double proven and probable (2P) reserves to 103m barrels.
Strong cash flow has enabled Coastal to repay $30m (£18.7m) of debt since year-end and Credit Suisse expects 2012 EPS of 170¢.
| COASTAL ENERGY (CEO) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 965p | MARKET VALUE: | £1,102m | |
| TOUCH: | 945-985p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,350p | LOW: 360p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | nil | PE RATIO: | 37 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 218¢ | NET DEBT: | 22%* | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover ($m) | Pre-tax profit ($m) | Earnings per share (¢) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | nil | -5.00 | -10.0 | nil |
| 2008 | 4.10 | -1.90 | -3.00 | nil |
| 2009 | 86.3 | 0.62 | 0.00 | nil |
| 2010 | 177 | -23.0 | -12.0 | nil |
| 2011 | 319 | 107 | 42.0 | nil |
| % change | +80 | - | - | - |
*Excludes restricted cash of $28.4m £1=$1.61 | ||||
