TIRANA, March 30 – Canadian petrochemical company Bankers Petroleum cut the after-tax loss from its Albanian operations by 54.3 percent to $1.6 million (1.2 million euro) in 2006, as oil and gas revenues rose strongly, company figures showed on Friday.
Bankers Petroleum reported a $1.3 million pre-tax profit for last year, compared to a $3.3 million pre-tax loss in the previous year, the company’s consolidated balance sheet showed.Oil and gas revenue rose 130.7 percent to $31.6 million in 2006.
The company drills in Albania’s Patos Marinze onshore oilfield, in the south, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Bankers Albania. In 2004, its local unit was awarded a 24-month licence agreement to evaluate the field and propose a development plan to state-owned oil researcher, developer and producer Albpetrol.
In March 2006, Albania approved Bankers Albania development plan for the oilfield, under which the company will invest up to $213 million by 2010. The plan enables the company to produce and sell oil under Albpetrol’s existing licence for a period of 25 years with an option to extend it for further five-year increments.
Future plans
The company reported 4,406 barrels of oil per day (bopd) exit production from the oilfield last year as average crude oil production was 3,490 bopd, compared to 1,687 bopd for 2005. “Our immediate goal in Albania is to increase production by roughly 2,000 bopd to exit the year [2007] over 6,000 bopd. In the long-term, we want to increase heavy oil production to 10-15,000 bopd by 2010 through primary recovery techniques,” Bankers Petroleum President Richard Wadsworth said in a statement.
For 2007, the company estimates its capital expenditures in the oilfield of between $38.3 million and $42.2 million. “We are also moving forward on other initiatives that can provide growth beyond our current plans, whether that is growth in production, netbacks, cash flow or increasing the field’s recoverable reserves,” Wadsworth said.
“Three critical initiatives include: enhanced oil recovery (EOR) pilot wells to commence this summer; a review and possible acquisition of Albania’s refineries as recently announced to undergo privatization by the government; and further studies and engineering to follow up on potential secondary waterflood development, horizontal wells and an expanded EOR pilot,” elaborated Wadsworth.
The company launched a study for a thermal enhanced oil recovery (EOR) pilot project in the oilfield last September aiming to increase total production above the current 15,000 bopd production target.
BP in Albania
Bankers Petroleum has also a marketing agreement, ending in 2010, with Albania’s sole oil refinery, the state-owned ARMO, under which Bankers Petroleum sells the crude it produces to in-country refineries. Under the agreement, it is allowed to export part or all of its crude output to markets outside the country. It started exporting last February to an Italian refinery. “During 2006 Bankers Albania exported 32 percent of its production, and received an average price of $30.86 per barrel sold,” the company said in the statement.
The Patos Marinze oilfield, located in Fier, southern Albania, was originally discovered in 1926 and has over 2,500 wells drilled. It is one of the largest onshore oilfields in continental Europe in terms of original oil in place. It is estimated to contain 1.96 billion barrels of original oil, with proven and probable reserves of 99.7 million barrels of gross oil as of end-December 2005.
