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Beach Energy savaged by investors

UPDATED | Oil and gas company Beach Energy is preparing to be the latest global LNG player, but investors savaged the stock after the annual result missed the mark.

Aug 15, 2022, updated Aug 15, 2022
Beach Energy's Otway Basin operation. Photo supplied

Beach Energy's Otway Basin operation. Photo supplied

The Adelaide-headquartered company is looking to expand gas extraction at home and abroad on rising gas prices and high demand.

“East Coast and West Coast acreage is integral to our growth aspirations,” chief executive Morné Engelbrecht told an investor briefing on Monday.

For Beach, the focus of the current financial year is on projects that will be a foundation for growth in 2024.

A lack of exploration outside the Cooper Basin in the past year was a key issue that the company would address this year and next, he said.

Beach reported an underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) of $504 million, up 39 per cent, and a fall in production.

Total revenue rose 13 per cent to $1.8 billion and underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 17 per cent to $1.1 billion.

But investors savaged the company, slashing more than 13 per cent or 25 cents off the share price to $1.60 in afternoon trade, after the result came in lower than market expectations.

Beach is “in great shape” and the objective is to support the market with new sources of gas supply, Engelbrecht said.

Beach operates across Australia and New Zealand and will enter the global liquefied natural gas market after last week inking an LNG supply deal with BP Singapore.

“This is a highly valuable contract which will provide a material revenue stream to Beach over its five-year term,” he said.

In the Otway Basin, offshore South Australia and Victoria, the explorer’s seven-well drilling campaign was successfully completed and delivered one new gas discovery at the Artisan field and six successful development wells in the Geographe and Thylacine fields.

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Geographe 4 and 5 were connected to the Otway Gas Plant and contributed to a 47 per cent increase in Otway Basin production, and the company said connection of the final four wells is targeted for mid-2023.

In the Perth Basin, the “transformational” Waitsia Stage 2 project commenced with good progress made on plant construction and development well drilling.

“Another key milestone was the recent signing of the LNG Sale and Purchase Agreement which will see BP purchase all 3.75 million tonnes of Waitsia Stage 2 LNG,” Engelbrecht said.

Beach also announced a new medium-term emissions reduction plan to support the aspiration to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

He said a key plank of their emissions reduction is the Moomba carbon capture and storage project, one of the world’s largest CCS projects that has been on the drawing board for more than a decade.

Santos and joint venture partner Beach in November announced their decision to go ahead with Moomba.

“We are targeting first carbon injection in 2024,” Engelbrecht said.

-AAP

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