Portugal's Galp Q4 oil. gas output up 21% on year at 135,100 boe/d

Barcelona — Galp, Portugal's largest oil and gas company, said Tuesday it boosted its upstream net production by 21% year on year to 135,100 b/d of oil equivalent during the fourth quarter of 2019 because of rising Brazilian and Angolan output.

Its output in Brazil increased 18% year on year to 121,800 boe/d due to the ramp-up of the Lula North floating production, storage and offloading vessel, where the fourth producer well was connected in the quarter, and the start-up of the unit allocated to Berbigao-Sururu in November.

Also, there was no maintenance during the period, with the remaining units in Brazil producing close to plateau levels.

Production in Angola continued to benefit from the ramp-up in block 32, with overall output up 50% year on year to 13,300 boe/d.

All figures are provisional with the group due to publish full quarterly results on February 18.

In the downstream business, the company said its achieved refining margin was $3.30/b in Q4, down 24% year on year and down 15% from Q3.

Galp Energia operates two refineries in Portugal -- a 220,000 b/d site at Sines and a 110,000 b/d facility at Matosinhos.

Throughput at the two refineries increased 38% year on year in Q4 to 26.5 million mt due to maintenances in Q4 2018.

As a result, the company's refined product sales also rose 18% year on year to 4.2 million mt, it said.

Galp's gas and power segment also showed an increase in volume during Q4 due to robust regional demand for power generation.

Total Q4 natural gas sales volume increased 16% year on year and 10% from Q3 to 2.0 Bcm.

Sales to direct clients rose 4% on the year in Q4 to 1.2 Bcm, while trading volume jumped 41% over the year to 768 million cu m, the company said.