Tullow also made use of higher prices in the third quarter, topping up its 2016-2019 oil production hedges by a combined 21,740 bpd, nearly double the amount hedged in the same quarter last year for 2015-2018.
The companies, all active in Britain, have also reaped benefits from the drop in the pound, which has fallen to its lowest in over 30 years since the country voted in June to leave the European Union.
A weaker pound means British-based oil producers, which earn revenue in dollars, see their spending in the local currency fall. Premier Oil(PMOIF), for example, has saved more than 250 million pounds ($312 million) thanks to the exchange rate.
The 16 percent drop in the pound against the dollar this year has prompted many producers to hedge their foreign exchange exposure, as well as their oil and gas.
Oil producer EnQuest(ENQUF) said it had hedged all of its sterling exposure for 2016 but none for 2017.
"We will see a decline in our cost base in dollar terms and an increase in our margins," EnQuest(ENQUF) Chief Executive Amjad Bseisu told Reuters.
"If you have the oil price coming down 70 percent and the pound coming down 20 percent, the oil price going up again has a much bigger impact." ($1 = 0.8020 pounds) (Editing by Dale Hudson)
Above is from 11-28, TODAY
Other news: NAIROBI, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Africa Oil(AOIFF) and its partners in Kenya will drill up to eight exploration and appraisal wells starting from December to boost proven resources and improve financing prospects for field development and an export pipeline, an executive said.
The group, which includes Tullow Oil(TUWLF) and Maersk , initially planned to build a single pipeline to connect Ugandan oil fields and the Kenyan project to Kenya's coast, but Uganda opted to build its own pipeline via Tanzania.
Africa Oil (AOIFF) Chief Executive Keith Hill told Reuters building a standalone pipeline for Kenya "makes us much more dependent on our own resources for justifying and financing that pipeline", encouraging further drilling to firm up oil discoveries.
The South Lokichar Basin in north Kenya is now estimated to have 766 million barrels of recoverable contingent oil resources.
These are classed as 2C resources, covering proven and probable resources, while 1C covers proven resources.
"If we could get to a billion barrels of 2C and say 300-350 million of 1C those would give us a pipeline tariff and lending base which would work very well for us," he said, without giving current estimates for 1C resources.
The latest drilling programme will begin with two exploration wells, the first to be spudded in early December, followed by two appraisal wells to make further assessments of existing finds. Depending on results, four more exploration wells will follow.
About one well a month will be drilled.
Hill, speaking from the United States, said he would have "really high confidence that both those thresholds" for 2C and 1C resources would be achieved if all eight wells were drilled.
The partners aim to secure a final investment decision for the Kenyan project by late 2018, with full production expected to start about three years later, he said.
Kenya plans to start small-scale production in 2017, involving trucking about 2,000 barrels per day to the coast.
Full-scale projection requires a 890 km (560 mile) pipeline, costing about $2.1 billion.
The government said last month it aimed to sign a joint development deal for the pipeline soon.
Tullow has a 50 percent stake in the Kenya project, while Africa Oil(AOIFF) and Maersk each own 25 percent of the two blocks where discoveries were made in 2012.
