Energy firm Equinor reported a sharp drop in second-quarter operating profit that beat analysts' estimates, as strong performance by its refinery and trading unit countered impact of a coronavirus-led slump in oil and gas prices.
The Norwegian oil and gas explorer posted an 89 per cent slump in its adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to $0.35 billion in the April-June quarter, compared with $3.15bn in the year-ago period. A poll of 25 analysts compiled by Equinor had forecast an adjusted operating loss of $0.2bn.
While all three oil exploration and production units, E&P Norway, E&P International and E&P USA, posted losses, its refinery and trading unit saw a rise in profits.
"Our financial results for the second quarter were impacted by very low realised oil and gas prices due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but also by a strong trading performance in volatile markets," chief executive Eldar Saetre said in a statement.
"We have reduced costs, maintained solid operational performance and continued to prioritise value over volume by deferring significant flexible gas production to periods with higher expected prices."
The Norwegian government has imposed limits on oil output from June to December this year, backing efforts by the Opec+ nations and others to support oil prices.
Equinor maintained a quarterly dividend of $0.09 per share, identical to the first quarter but down from $0.27 in October-December.
The company reiterated its goal of increasing output by 3 per cent per year from 2019 to 2026, and kept capital spending plans for this year unchanged at $8.5bn.
Equinor now expects crude oil prices to average $41 a barrel in 2020, up from a previous view of $39 a barrel seen in May, but it kept its long-term price assumptions unchanged, unlike other European majors.
The company has previously said it planned to revise its long-term price outlook, which could impact assets values, in the third-quarter.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
PAKISTAN SQUAD
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Points about the fast fashion industry Celine Hajjar wants everyone to know
- Fast fashion is responsible for up to 10 per cent of global carbon emissions
- Fast fashion is responsible for 24 per cent of the world's insecticides
- Synthetic fibres that make up the average garment can take hundreds of years to biodegrade
- Fast fashion labour workers make 80 per cent less than the required salary to live
- 27 million fast fashion workers worldwide suffer from work-related illnesses and diseases
- Hundreds of thousands of fast fashion labourers work without rights or protection and 80 per cent of them are women
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Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
