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.