Wentworth Pays Dividend, Eyes Growth

Wentworth Resources has paid its first interim dividend totalling $1mn, paid down some of its debt and is looking at growth in east Africa, following the closure of its Mozambique office in March, it said September 3.

It reported “sustained Mnazi Bay gas sales revenues of $8.02mn, down over a fifth from last year’s $10.79mn, but it did inject an additional 20mn ft³/day more into the National Natural Gas Pipeline from the Songo Songo field. Overall, production was down 12.4mn ft³ to 66.17mn ft³, which pushed up unit operating costs by almost half, to $0.64/’000 ft³/d. It expects production to average 60mn ft³/d-75mn ft³/day. Bad weather impacted Mnazi Bay output.

Pre-tax earnings (Ebitda) were $3.3mn, down from $7.1mn year on year, although there were non-recurring expenses, whereas last year these amounted to $11.8mn. But its net loss was down from $6.5mn to $0.2mn, with cash and cash equivalents on hand of $9.9mn, more than twice last year’s $4.04mn and with $8.4mn of cash receipts received post period end to 31 August 2019.

CEO Eskil Jersing said that Wentworth had continued to produce gas and receive associated revenues to reduce debt and build a cash balance of about $14.2mn at the end of August.

"Our confidence in the Tanzanian demand driven landscape has enabled us to introduce a maiden dividend with an expected annual yield of c.6.7%; this clearly distinguishes us from our peer group, whilst we focus on securing material east African growth and returns for all our shareholders," he said.