In its half-year report, BHP this morning reported that total petroleum production increased 5% to 60.54 million barrels of oil equivalent – reflecting the start-up of new projects, as well as strong gas demand in Australia, strong operating uptime and infill and development drilling.

Revenue was 27.5% higher than the previous corresponding period to $US3.77 billion, while EBIT was up 22.3% to $1.9 billion, as a result of strong commodity prices.

During the second half, petroleum production began at Genghis Khan (55,000 barrels of oil per day) and Atlantis South (200,000bopd and 180 million cubic feet of gas per day), in the Gulf of Mexico and at Stybarrow (80,000bopd) in Western Australia.

“Stybarrow was brought on two months ahead of schedule and is exceeding early production forecasts,” BHP said.

Budgeted exploration expenditure during the period was $295 million, of which $196 million was spent.

“We successfully captured acreage in the October 2007 Gulf of Mexico lease sale process, made the Thebe gas discovery offshore Australia and continued to build a diverse portfolio of opportunities with seismic data acquired in Colombia, Brazil, Namibia, Australia and the Gulf of Mexico during the half-year,” BHP added.