Feb 19 (Reuters) - Australia's Santos STO.AX posted nearly a 16% drop in its annual profit on Wednesday, hurt by a fall in production and lower realized prices.

The country's second-largest independent gas producer's underlying profit was at $1.20 billion for the year ended December 31, compared with $1.42 billion a year earlier and the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of $1.32 billion.

(Reporting by Himanshi Akhand and Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

((Himanshi.Akhand@thomsonreuters.com;Adwitiya.Srivastava@thomsonreuters.com;))