Mitsubishi books Y35bn in impairment losses on oil and gas assets

TOKYO: Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp said on Wednesday it has booked an impairment loss of 35 billion yen ($297.16 million) on its oil and gas assets in the October-December quarter due to slumping oil prices and production delay.

That includes the 23-billion-yen loss on the Cordova shale gas project in Canada and the 12-billion-yen loss on a North Sea oil project, Shuma Uchino, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), told a news conference.

But the company stuck to its net profit forecast of 400 billion yen for the year that ends on March 31, citing healthy profits from non-resource businesses are expected to offset an estimated total writedown of about 60-70 billion yen on its resource assets for the year, Uchino said.