Jersey Oil & Gas sees North Sea buys as FY losses narrow

Jersey Oil & Gas on Monday said it was confident of grabbing a “number” of North Sea acquisition targets in 2016 as it full-year pre-tax losses narrowed to £1.4m from £44.4m.

A cut is sales costs helped reduce the losses, although revenues were hit by the falling oil price, down to £4m from £13m.

Chief executive Andrew Benitz said management and senior employees also agreed to take further salary cuts to enable Jersey to operate within its existing cash reserves into 2017.

“The continued sustained depression in the oil price is leading us to see an increasing number of opportunities as vendor expectations become more realistic or lenders force companies to dispose of non-core assets to meet their debt and banking obligations,” he said.

“Although it is clearly difficult to forecast a definitive date for our first acquisition, which itself will be dependent on agreeing acceptable terms with vendors, I am confident that the team we have in place, positive indications of funding support, a pipeline of potential deals and the current business environment will lead to the successful acquisition of production assets in 2016 and beyond.”

“Although several bids have been made to date, no acquisitions have yet been consummated, due in part to the volatile oil price in the second half of 2015 which has led a number of vendors expectations remaining unrealistic.”