SYDNEY, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Australian gas giant Santos released its quarterly report on Thursday, revealing that over half the gas slated to be exported from its Gladstone LNG (GLNG) operation was being purchased via third parties.
According to their quarterly report, the company who has a 30 percent stake in the GLNG operation, produced only 43 percent of the gas eventually exported from that plant, but this was still an improvement on the 38 percent they managed in the last period.
"GLNG produced higher LNG volumes in the first quarter, as strong upstream field performance delivered higher volumes of equity gas to the LNG plant," Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher said.
Santos had lower than expected first quarter production, with only 14.8 million barrels of oil equivalent, which the company attributed to the sale of the Victorian, Mereenie and Stag operations, but contends these losses were offset by their GLNG equity production.
Gallagher was confident of his company's outlook, and said the ongoing corporate turnaround strategy continued to yield positive outcomes for the business.
Santos was able to reduce their debt levels during the quarter, improving their position by 380 million U.S dollars, and said they plan to reach their target of a total 1.5 billion U.S. dollar reduction in their net debt by 2019.
At 12:27 local time AEST, Santos was trading down 2.6 percent to sit at 3.56 Australian dollars (2.67 U.S. dollars) per share.
