Norwegian independent oil company Aker BP said on Thursday it planned to drill more exploration wells this year, after reporting a record operating profit for the final quarter of 2021 buoyed by higher petroleum prices.
Its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for October-December rose to a record $1.26 billion from $278 million a year earlier.
The company will drill 13 wells this year, up from 10 in 2021, while continuing to focus on keeping costs down, Chief Executive Officer Karl Johnny Hersvik said.
"We've learned in a relatively dramatic way that oil and gas prices can't be influenced, and neither can we assume that they will be stable," Hersvik told reporters.
"We must not lose our heads and pursue projects we would not otherwise have started," he said.
Aker BP is set to increase capital spending to $1.6 billion this year from $1.4 billion last year, but plans to spend an unchanged $400 million on exploration, despite increasing the number of wells to be drilled.
The company, controlled by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke and partly owned by BP, in December announced a $14 billion deal to acquire the oil and gas assets of Sweden's Lundin Energy.
The transaction, set to be completed by mid-2022, would make Aker BP the second-largest listed oil firm on the Norwegian continental shelf after state-controlled Equinor.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Rashmi Aich)