LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - PetroTal Corp posted a surged in first-quarter production on Thursday, leaving it on track to comfortably beat annual guidance.
The Aim-listed firm, which is domiciled in Canada but has operations in Peru, said production at its flagship Bretana asset jumped 22% year-on-year to 22,660 barrels of oil per day (bopd), or by 17% on the previous quarter.

That took total production up to 23,280 bopd, ahead of annual guidance for between 21,000 and 23,000 bopd.

As at 1100 BST, shares in PetroTal had climbed 11% at 33.38p.

Manuel Pablo Zuniga-Pflucker, chief executive, said production had hit a new quarterly record during the period

Looking to the rest of the year, he continued: "Our operations team is hard at work preparing for two projects that will ramp up during the second quarter.

"That said, PetroTal is closely monitoring the oil price outlook. We have hedges on nearly 40% of our remaining 2025 oil production. We also have a high degrees of flexibility to manage our capital programme in line with our funding capabilities."

Oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks, as investors react to higher-than-expected supply hikes from Opec+ and fears of slowing demand, following Donald Trump's chaotic imposition of sweeping tariffs worldwide.

Having started the year trading around $80 a barrel, benchmark Brent crude is now $63.92.

PetroTal said it ended the first quarter with a total cash position of $113.6m, around $103m of which was unrestricted, largely unchanged on the fourth quarter's $114.5m.

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