Southern Pet. loss increases to $7.5M

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 37

Southern Pet. loss increases to $7.5M

PA Wellington Southern Petroleum NL yesterday reported a trading loss of $3,201,000 in the year ended June 30, up from a loss of $679,000 the year before. Extraordinary items of $4,328,000 ($1,698,000) took the bottomline to a loss of $7,529,000 ($2,377,000 loss).

Southern Petroleum paid no tax in either year.

The preliminary loss statement included a restatement of the previous year’s loss, making it $2,200,702 lower than reported in the past. That reflected a change in ac-

counting policy.

The directors recommended no final dividend. Directors said the result reflected the continued exploration activity in onshore Taranaki licence area PPL3B-34.

In arriving at the loss for the year, the company had capitalised certain exploration costs using the "successful efforts” concept.

That treats the investment in the licence area which contains the Tariki and Ahuroa discoveries (Southern’s interest 22.6 per cent), in the company’s books at a value which reflected the actual licence acquisition and

exploration costs of the successful wells with all other such costs, including goodwill, being written off.

Directors said the year had seen significant activity in the offshore Taranaki licence area PPL3B-114 in which the Te Whatu-1 well was located.

The Zapata Arctic rig is now on station and the well was spudded in at 1 a.m. on Monday.

The group holds an aggregate interest of 16.95345 per cent and was active in ensuring that this exciting prospect was explored.