Cairn Energy narrows full year losses

Cairn Energy said it had narrowed full year pre-tax losses to $151m from $497.8m.

Losses per share closed to 16.56 cents from 90.26 cents in 2015.

Cairn said it would this year start production, continue to deliver future development as well as define and explore significant growth opportunities from its Senegal operations.

“In Senegal, we have confirmed the scale and potential of this world class asset, and following the appraisal success and contingent resource upgrade in 2016, we have now commenced the third phase of evaluation activity. The joint venture also has plans for future exploration drilling.”

“We will continue to advance the business to create a balanced exploration portfolio across emerging and frontier basins in the Atlantic Margin and Barents Sea alongside mature basins in the North Sea,” it added.

“In the UK and Norway, we have high quality assets and have made significant progress in the last year.”

“With a fully funded balance sheet, the company is well positioned to the prevailing oil price environment which presents challenges to the industry but also opportunities to allocate capital to value enhancing projects while benefiting from reduced operational costs.”

Cairn Energy shares were down 0.27% to 223.6p at 0851 GMT.