Gulf Keystone annual production target intact

Gulf Keystone Petroleum left its annual production target intact as the oil and gas producer said daily activity would be towards the bottom of guidance.

In a trading update before the company's annual meeting, it said the forecast for full-year production was unchanged. But it said that due to changes in its drilling schedule, average gross production in 2019 was expected to be at the lower end of its guidance for 32,000-38,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

Gulf Keystone said average gross production so far in 2019 was 29,993 bopd. Production was higher at 38,100 bopd before the planned shutdown of the PF-1 well at its Shaikan field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. PF-1 is expected to be offline for 15-20 days and an export pipeline is expected to be running by the third quarter of 2019.

As a result, the company said it expected to achieve its 55,000 bopd production target in the second quarter of 2020 and not in the first quarter as it previously guided.

Workovers on the SH-1 and SH-3 facilities have been completed and production has increased as expected, the company said. At SH-1 production more than doubled to 7,800 bopd and at SH-3 production increased 40% to 6,200 bopd. Sedimentary material has been removed to allow drilling at the SH-12 well.

Jón Ferrier, Gulf Keystone's chief executive, said: "Operational activity has intensified and good progress is being made across all fronts of our Shaikan expansion programme … We are pleased to have started the drilling campaign, in addition to seeing promising results with the workovers drilled at SH-1 and SH-3. We look forward to bringing our new export pipeline into service later in the year eliminating the need for trucking and reducing HSSE (health, safety, security and environment) exposure."

Gulf Keystone shares rose 2% to 2.34p at 09:39 BST.