US company Apache reported 12 month profits of US$ 1.19 billion, a significant increase upon the US$ 689 million for 2010. Total revenues also grew from US$ 3.47 billion to US$ 4.3 billion in conjunction with a 14% rise in production that saw output hit 748,000 bpd.
These booming figures have allowed Apache to open up US$ 9.5 billion in capex for 2012 as part of plans to drill 20 – 30% more wells than in 2011.
Apache stated that normally oil and gas production account for 50% of company revenues, but due to “the wide gap between global crude oil and North American natural gas prices” oil and gas production rose to account for 80% of the company’s total revenues.
The company also pointed out that “Apache’s results also benefitted from the price differentials between oil prices in basins linked to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark and higher prices for oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico, Egypt, Australia and the North Sea that represents approximately 76% of its crude production.”
Apache also has plans to boost its overall production levels by approximately 7 – 13% Many of the new wells planned for 2012 will be drilled in the Permian and Anadarko basins, but there are plans for wells in Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf of Mexico, Egypt, Alaska, and Kenya.