BHP Billiton, the Australian commodities and energy company, said its prices from the North West Shelf LNG export project in Western Australia increased by more than 36 percent as its shareholders also benefited from the sale of US shale assets in the Fayetteville, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Permian basins.
The company’s overall LNG prices rose to US$10.19 per million British thermal units in the second half of 2018 compared with US$7.48 per MMBtu in the second half of 2017.
The sales process for BHP’s offloading of its US shale assets was completed at the end of October 2018 with the net proceeds of US$10.4 billion being returned to shareholders.
A US$5.2 billion off-market buy-back of BHP Group Limited shares was successfully completed in December 2018.
“The balance of the net proceeds will be paid on 30 January 2019 as a special dividend of US$1.02 per share,” said BHP in its first-half operational review.
“Production in the first half was broadly in line with the prior period despite planned maintenance and outages,” said BHP Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie.
“In petroleum, our first appraisal well at Trion in Mexico encountered oil and we added to our exploration options with successful bids for two licences offshore Eastern Canada,” added Mackenzie.
BHP will report its financial results on February 19 and expects several exceptional one-off charges to be made against earnings.
BHP’s natural gas production in countries like Trinidad & Tobago was broadly flat at 206 billion cubic feet.
“This was partially offset by planned maintenance in Trinidad in the December 2018 quarter and natural field decline across the portfolio,” stated BHP.
BHP’s total oil and gas output was little changed year-on-year and amounted to 62,951million barrels of oil equivalent in 2018 versus 63,859 mboe in 2017.
The company’s oil and gas operations include fields in Australia, the Gulf of Mexico, Trinidad & Algeria.
The company also noted that during the previous quarter the Australia Bass Strait West Barracouta gas project was approved.
BHP will contribute an investment of A$200 million (US$143M) and first gas is expected in 2021 to help offset Bass Strait production decline, and to deliver competitive returns.
Its share in the North West Shelf Greater Western Flank-B project in Western Australia to prolong production at the North West Shelf LNG plant amounts to 16.67 percent.
