New Zealand Oil & Gas narrowed its loss in the final six months of 2016, just before the $168 million sale of its stake in the Kupe oil and gas fields, cutting almost a third of its operating costs, and halving exploration expenditure. The Wellington-based company posted a loss attributable to shareholders of $18m, or 7.7 cents, in the six months ended December 31, down from a loss of $27.6m, or 7.9 cents, a year earlier. The loss included a further $7.7m impairment charge on the Maari field, a loss on the sale of Cue Energy's Pine Mills field in the US, declining production from Tui and outages at Kupe and Maari, NZOG said. The company is on the hunt for cheap assets, which it plans to buy using some of the proceeds from Kupe sale. NZOG shares last traded at 65 cents and have jumped 55 per cent over the past 12 months.

Source: New Zealand Herald February 28, 2017 20:58 UTC