Australian Santos Surprized By Its Revenue

Australian number 3 oil and gas producer Santos Ltd. announced Monday its annual sales rose 2.5 percent to a record 1.5 billion Australian dollars (US$1.15 billion) last year, despite production losses from a major fire.

The company said the result reflected higher average prices with most products and was achieved despite lower production most of the year largely related to a fire at its majority-owned Moomba gas processing facility in South Australia state in January.

Production for the 12 months to Dec. 31, 2004, slipped to 47.1 million barrels of oil equivalent from 54.2 million reported in 2003.