Greka Drilling's 2015 Loss Widens

Asia focused unconventional oil and gas driller Greka Drilling reported annual revenue in 2015 at $29.9 million from $24.4 million a year ago.

Loss before tax widened to $7.5m versus $5.3m in 2014 principally due to foreign exchange loss due to US dollar appreciation against RMB, the company said Thursday.  Foreign exchange losses in 2015 were $3.6m compared with $0.8m in the previous year.

“In 2015 we accomplished a 23 percent increase in revenues despite the challenging environment faced by the global drilling industry due to the rapid collapse in the commodity prices.  However, our earnings were adversely impacted by foreign exchange losses and by our ongoing investment in India, where we have the only fleet of modern CBM-tailored rigs and we are at the forefront of developments in the CBM industry.  We are delighted that Essar Oil Limited recently remobilised two of our rigs in India for drilling in the Raniganj block, which vindicates our commitment to the India market,” Randeep S. Grewal, Chairman & CEO of Greka Drilling, commented.

Greka has three principal contracted counterparties: Green Dragon Gas Ltd and PetroChina Huabei in China, and Essar Oil Limited in India.

Last year Greka drilled 62 wells, a 38 percent increase over the 45 wells drilled in 2014. Earlier this week it announced it will begin drilling at Essar’s India coal bed methane block next month. Greka and Essar signed the agreement in January this year. This is the second contract between the two parties.