Exploration & Production | Operational Updates | Quarterly / Earnings Reports

Apache First Quarter 2013 Update

Share Print Bookmark    |    Friday,May 10,2013

First-quarter 2013 worldwide production of 781,819 boe per day compared with 769,296 boe per day in the prior-year period and 800,005 boe per day in the fourth quarter of 2012. As previously disclosed, first-quarter 2013 worldwide production was negatively impacted by interruptions associated with cyclones in Australia and third-party gas plant downtime in Canada.

Apache currently is the second most-active U.S. onshore driller with 42 rigs in operation in the Permian Basin and 28 rigs active in the Anadarko Basin. The Permian and Central regions averaged 205,650 boe per day — 26 percent of Apache's worldwide output — and spent 40 percent of the company's first-quarter drilling capital.

Growth in onshore liquids output was offset by the deferred production of 4,100 boe per day in Canada and 3,500 boe per day in Australia, lower North American gas production because of reduced dry gas drilling activity and natural field declines in other international regions.

The company had previously incorporated production deferrals and declines into its production guidance, and remains on track to achieve its full-year guidance of 3 to 5 percent production growth. This production guidance has not been adjusted for any variances associated with future divestitures.

Operational highlights

• Production in the Anadarko Basin — Apache's Central Region — increased 129 percent from the year-earlier period to 86,215 boe per day, largely a result of successful drilling in the Tonkawa, Granite Wash and other liquids-rich formations.
• Permian Basin production rose to 119,435 boe per day, up 20 percent from the prior-year period, as a result of increased drilling and recompletion activity in oil and liquids-rich plays, including the Wolfcamp Shale, the Cline Shale and Yeso.
• The Tonto oil field in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea commenced production on April 24, 2013. Tonto-1, the first producing well, came on stream at an initial rate of 10,346 barrels of oil per day through a tie-back to the Forties Bravo production platform.
• Three discoveries in three basins in Egypt — Alamein, Faghur and Matruh — highlighted the company's diverse potential for new oil and gas developments across its concessions.