24 Aug 2005

Oil company in PNG posts record half year profit

10:18 am on 24 August 2005

An oil and gas company in Papua New Guinea has had a record six month profit owing to booming oil prices.

Oil Search Limited had a 53 per cent jump in its half-yearly profit to almost US$64 million.

The profit follows record sales of US$233 million from the production of 5.5 million barrels of oil from its operations.

Oil Search now plans to increase production to US$6.5 million barrels in the second half of 2005.

Managing director Peter Botton is keen to push production higher to take advantage of the current price of oil of US$65 a barrel.

The company has earmarked most of its profits to fund explorations in PNG and Yemen.