Colombia's Ecopetrol 1Q Profits Up 62% To $1.93 Billion
05 May 2011 - 10:32AM
Dow Jones News
Colombia's state-controlled energy company Ecopetrol SA (EC,
ECOPETROL.BO) reported robust first quarter net profits Wednesday
that far surpassed market expectations, fueled by higher oil prices
and rising production.
Net profits last quarter were 3.4 trillion Colombian pesos
($1.93 billion), a 62% jump from profits of COP2.1 trillion in the
first quarter of last year. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones
Newswires forecast Ecopetrol's first quarter 2011 profits would be
COP2.9 trillion.
"The results obtained ... were very positive in all segments of
the business," said Ecopetrol President Javier Gutierrez Pemberthy
in a statement.
The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and
amortization, or Ebitda, was COP6.4 trillion last quarter, a 58%
jump from a year earlier, the statement said.
Gutierrez said the strong results came despite torrential rain
throughout the country during the first months of the year, which
created production and transportation problems for many sectors of
the economy.
"The wave of winter put to the test our work teams and allowed
us to demonstrate to the country our operating capacity to respond
to diverse situations," he said.
Ecopetrol's production rose to 686,000 barrels a day of oil
equivalent in the first quarter, a 17% gain from that quarter of
last year, it said.
Analysts attribute the higher oil output by Ecopetrol to higher
recovery rates in mature fields and new projects coming into
line.
Ecopetrol, which bills itself as one of the top 40 oil companies
in the world and the fourth-largest oil company in Latin America,
also began ramping up investments this year, spending $1.88 billion
in the first quarter, more than double than a year earlier, the
statement said.
A third of what it spent last quarter went to production-related
investments, it added.
The company aims to boost output to 750,000 barrels a day in
2011 by improving the extraction rates at existing fields and from
the 51% stake in the Colombian operations of BP PLC (BP, BP.LN)
that it recently purchased along with Canadian oil firm Talisman
Energy Inc (TLM, TLM.T).
Ecopetrol is involved in production and exploration projects in
the U.S. Gulf Coast, Brazil and Peru, where in 2010 it was awarded
the rights to several exploration blocks. The company has earmarked
$8.5 billion in capital investment for all of 2011.
Shares of Ecopetrol on the Colombian Stock Exchange rose 0.1%
Wednesday to COP3,800 while other locally-traded oil companies fell
sharply amid a decline in global oil prices.
--By Dan Molinski, Dow Jones Newswires; 57-310-867-6542;
dan.molinski@dowjones.com
--Darcy Crowe contributed to this report.
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