OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings in a new report says that reserve replacement was weak for many of the rated Asia-Pacific (APAC) oil and gas companies in 2014, and reserve replacement and production growth may come under pressure following cutbacks in capex due to low oil prices. Fitch expects production costs to fall for most operators as they trim costs in reaction to weaker oil prices, reversing a trend of increasing production costs.

The report also highlights debt exposure of companies relative to their reserves and discusses issuers, such as Oil India Ltd (BBB-/Stable) and PTT Public Company Limited (BBB+/Stable), whose debt levels have increase in the last few years due to acquisitions that are yet to add to proven reserves and production levels.

Fitch's first "Asia-Pacific Exploration & Production Handbook" covers nine rated oil and gas companies in APAC with upstream operations and details production and reserve replacement ratio trends, evolution of costs, upstream metrics and summary financial information. The report also discusses quality of upstream information reported by these companies.

The rated entities covered in the report are:
- PetroChina Company Limited (A+/Stable)
- China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) (A+/Stable)
- CNOOC Limited (A+/Stable)
- Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) (A/Stable)
- Woodside Petroleum Ltd (BBB+/Stable)
- PTT Public Company Limited (BBB+/Stable)
- PT Pertamina (Persero) (BBB-/Stable)
- Oil India Ltd (BBB-/Stable)
- MIE Holdings Corporation (B/Stable)

The full report is available on www.fitchratings.com.