Penn West Q4 Loss Widens On Impairment Charges - Update

(RTTNews) - Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (PWT.TO, PWE) Friday reported a much wider loss for the fourth quarter, reflecting a fall in revenues, significant impairment charges and unrealized foreign exchange losses.

For the fourth quarter, the Canadian oil and natural gas production company's net and comprehensive loss significantly widened to C$728 million or C$1.49 per share from C$78 million or C$0.16 per share reported a year earlier.

During the quarter, the company recorded non-cash impairment charges of C$742 million related to Property, Plant and Equipment.

Funds Flow per share, a non-GAAP measure, was C$0.44, while the company posted C$0.62 per share last year.

Gross revenues, including realized gains and losses on commodity contracts, fell 23 percent to C$613 million from C$799 million a year earlier. Oil and natural gas sales totaled C$606 million, compared to C$791 million in the preceding year.

Total Production for the quarter declined 19 percent to 123,995 boe per day.

Average sales price for Light oil and NGL increased 2 percent to $77.43 per bbl. Sales price of Heavy oil declined 2 percent to $58.66 per bbl. Natural gas prices improved 8 percent to $3.53 per mcf.

For full-year 2013, loss was C$838 million or C$1.72 per share, while the company recorded a profit of C$149 million or C$0.31 per share last year. Annual gross revenues decreased to C$2.835 billion from C$3.283 billion in 2012.

Total production for the year decreased by 16 percent to 135,093 boe/d from 161,195 boe/d in 2012. Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2014, the company sees development capital budget to be about C$230 million.

For 2014, the firm forecast average production to be 101,000 boe per day to 106,000 boe per day, and development capital expenditures budget to be C$900 million.

The board has also declared a first-quarter dividend of C$0.14 per share, to shareholders of record on March 31, 2014, payable on April 15.

PWE closed Thursday's regular trading at $7.92 on the NYSE. In the pre-market activity on Friday, the shares are down 1.52 percent.

On the Toronto Stock Exchange, the shares ended at C$8.70.