- Santos (OTCPK:STOSF, OTCPK:SSLZY) surges to a 52-week high after reporting its H1 profit nearly doubled and restoring its dividend, just a day after locking in near-term growth with its $2.15B acquisition of Quadrant Energy.
- Santos says H1 underlying earnings jumped to US$217M from $109M a year earlier and revenue increased to $1.68B from $1.45B, even as production was held down by an outage at the Papua New Guinea LNG plant after an earthquake.
- Santos suspended dividends in 2016, diverting cash to pay down debt which had peaked for the construction of its Gladstone LNG project just as oil prices collapsed; it has since cut net debt to $2.4B and says it is on course to bring debt below $2B before year-end, a year ahead of plan.
- The company says the cash generated from Quadrant, the biggest gas supplier to the domestic market in Western Australia, will help fund expansions in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea, as well as servicing the $1.2B in debt it is taking on for the deal.
- Now read: WildHorse Resource Development (WRD) Presents at EnerCom's 23rd Annual Oil & Gas Conference - Slideshow
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