Hess Corp. upbeat on production

July 25 (UPI) -- Even after selling off its stake in a U.S. shale basin, Hess Corp. said Wednesday its full-year production guidance for the year was unchanged.

Hess Corp. said its second quarter production averaged 265,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, down about 10 percent from last year. Nevertheless, the company said output for the quarter was above expectations.

"Our full year production guidance, excluding Libya, continues to be 245,000 boepd to 255,000 boepd, even with the loss of volumes from the sale of our Utica joint venture interests," the company's statement read.

Hess in April reached an agreement with Ascent Resources to sell off its joint venture interests in the Utica shale basin in eastern Ohio. The divestment of 39,000 net acres was expected to produce an average of 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day this year, of which 70 percent is natural gas.

The U.S. government categorized the Utica and Marcellus shale basins as the single Appalachian basin after noting it was difficult to distinguish between the two.

Proceeds from the sale were used to invest in offshore Guyana and the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota.

Bakken shale during the second quarter for Hess represented about 45 percent of net production.

On Monday, Hess and its partners at Exxon Mobil revised the estimate of recoverable reserves at the Stabroek block off the coast of Guyana from 3.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent to more than 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Hess Corp. CEO John Hess said the block was massive in terms of its resources and "keeps getting bigger and better."

Offshore Guyana could be producing as much as a half million barrels per day by late 2023.

On financials, Hess said it recorded a net loss of $130 million for the second quarter, compared with $449 million for the same period last year. Spending on exploration and production was $525 million, about 3 million less than second quarter 2017.