Japex Books Big Canadian Shale Loss

Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) said January 26 it will book a large 4Q2017 impairment loss on its holding in the Montney shale gas project, British Columbia, in western Canada in 4Q2017.

With the scrapping last year of the Pacific NorthWest LNG Project, Japex said it has decided to reduce the carrying amount of its asset by yen 68bn (C$750mn or US$626mn) based on the revised development plan of the upstream project, it said. 

Japex will thus recognise a yen 39bn loss on the valuation of shares of subsidiaries and associates, plus yen 4.4bn of a provision of the allowance for overseas investment loss as an extraordinary loss in the October-December quarter of its financial year ending March 31, 2018.  The estimated impact on profit attributable to owners for the nine months to December 31, 2017 will be a loss of roughly yen 34bn, it said.