North Sea storms and the polar vortex freezing the USA have been blamed after oil giant ConocoPhillips cut its fourth quarter production estimates.
The company was forced to pull more than 150 staff from the Ekofisk North Sea field last month as 115mph winds battered the region.
At the same time bad weather hit in the US, including a storm which shut down production on a number of Gulf of Mexico installations.
As a result, ConocoPhillips has now cut its production guidance for the last quarter, revising it down from the 1.5million barrels a day previously forecast.
“The recent quarter’s average production was negatively impacted by significant weather-related downtime in several operational areas, notably in the Lower 48 and the North Sea,” the company said in a statement.
“As a result, fourth-quarter production for continuing operations is expected to be approximately 1,475 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.”
“There has been no long-term impact to production from this weather-related downtime and 2014 guidance for continuing operations remains unchanged at approximately 1,600 Mboed.”
The firm said it was including an estimated 50 thousand barrels a day from the Es Sider terminal in Libya, despite ongoing problems in the country having shut down the facility so far.
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