Repsol - Spanish Oil Company - Cuts Reserves 25% - Trading Suspended

[hatrack]

Shares in Repsol YPF were suspended on Thursday as the Spanish oil and gas group revealed it would have to revise down proven reserves equivalent to 25 per cent of its total.

More than half of the revisions relate to Bolivia, where the company said it would make a downward adjustment of 658m barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of gas and oil. It mainly blamed reforms to the country’s hydrocarbons law under new socialist president Evo Morales, which it said would affect investment and production.

However, rumours that Repsol had overstated its Bolivian reserves, constantly denied, have been swirling around the Spanish stock market for more than a year.

The company said: “In Bolivia, the introduction of the new hydrocarbon law has rendered future production at certain fields and several development projects no longer commercially viable.” In neighbouring Argentina, 509m barrels are affected, Repsol said.

EDIT

http://www.energybulletin.net/12362.html

[400Years]

1. they were just waiting for an excuse

[htuttle]

2. Evo Morales did not make 658 million barrels of oil disappear overnight!

He might affect their profitability, but not the amount of their reserves.

[phantom power]

3. You have to admire the jujitsu of it all...

It's so timeless. Announce some bit of news which is objectively *bad* for the industry, but tack on some gratuitous bit of spin that blames it on environmental regs. It doesn't even have to make any sense, it works every time.