The decline is largely caused by extensive maintenance activities impacting both oil and gas production, the company says in a press release.
The company stated that the drop was in line with management expectation, but the news resulted in a 5.4 per cent drop in the Statoil share on the Oslo Stock Exchange Monday.
Statoil’s third quarter 2010 net operating income was NOK 28.2 billion, compared to NOK 28.3 billion in the third quarter of 2009.
- Extensive planned maintenance activities throughout the third quarter have affected both our oil and gas production significantly says Statoil’s CEO Helge Lund. -Our financial performance and cash generation remains solid, reaffirming our financial flexibility to support a continued development of our portfolio.
Statoil’s management has been criticized by employees for bad management and weak production efficiency on the company’s older installations in the North Sea. Union leaders have claimed that the company has lost over NOK 10 billion (€1.2 billion) annually on sales revenues from oil and gas because of low efficiency, which again is a result of cutbacks in manpower, reorganizations and unforeseen episodes because of lacking maintenance, BarentsObserver reported.
