BG Group see profit, buoyed by asset selloff

LONDON, July 31, 2015 – BG Group booked a 63-percent rise in net profit for the second quarter of 2015, however this was mainly due to an assets selloff and masks a 38-percent decline in revenue and a 65-percent drop in profit on a business performance basis.

The UK company reported a net profit of $2.23 billion between April and June, up from $1.37 billion in 2014. The numbers take into account $2.5 billion of profit from the shedding of assets, compared to $178 million the previous year, and include the $4.6-billion sale of BG’s Queensland Curtis LNG pipeline in Australia to domestic Apa Group completed in June 2015.

BG’s revenues dropped from $5.51 billion to $3.95 billion, while its operating profit fell to $429 million, compared to the $1.21 billion posted the previous year. Still, BG’s earnings figures put it ahead of the many oil and gas majors that reported a net loss for the second quarter of 2015, such as Total, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Italy’s Eni.

BG’s performance was due in part to a 19-percent year-on-year increase in production, which shot up to 703,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The gains mainly came from activities in Brazil, Australia, Norway and Kazakhstan.

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