Lasmo's sales fall

Lasmo's sales fall

HONG KONG (Dow Jones): Lasmo PLC of the U.K. (LSO) said late Thursday that sales of liquefied natural gas from its Indonesian fields could suffer additional declines on top of a 2 percent fall this year.

In its interim results, the company added that LNG sales face near-term potential for a "small number" of further decreases due to the region's current economic problems.

This would come on top of the company's current forecast of approximately 38 net LNG cargoes in 1998, or 2 percent below earlier expectations, due to reduced near-term purchases by South Korea. Earlier this year, the country's weakening demand forced state-controlled Korea Gas Corp. to delay a total of 21 cargoes from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

The majority of this reduction has been rescheduled into 1999 and 2000, the company said. Beyond 1998, Lasmo said it expects its net cargoes to increase until after the year 2000.

In the first half of 1998, the company said 136 cargoes were exported from Indonesia's Bontang LNG plant, but net cargoes attributable to Lasmo for its share in the Sanga production- sharing contract fell to 18.0 from 22.3 the previous year.