Oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips on Thursday forecast lower annual output and excluded Qatar from its near-term outlook, citing the Iran war that has disrupted operations in the Middle East.
ConocoPhillips is a partner in QatarEnergy’s liquefied natural gas export plant, which is one of the world’s largest providers of the superchilled gas.
Iranian attacks on the facility have knocked out about a sixth of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, worth about $20 billion a year, with repairs expected to take three to five years.
The company now expects 2026 production to be between 2.29 and 2.325 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, compared with its previous forecast of 2.33 mmboepd to 2.36 mmboepd.
It also forecast current-quarter production of 2.185 mmboepd to 2.215 mmboepd.
ConocoPhillips said the annual outlook reflects a reduction of about 20,000 boed linked to the exclusion of Qatar volumes, along with another 15,000 boed impact from higher royalty rates at its Surmont oil sands project in Canada.
During the first quarter, the Houston-based company’s average realized prices dropped 6% to $50.36 per barrel of oil equivalent, due to weaker gas prices.
Its net income fell to $2.18 billion, or $1.78 per share, for the three months ended March 31, from $2.85 billion, or $2.23 per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)