ConocoPphillips 2Q profit falls 33 pct
NEW YORK — ConocoPhillips said Wednesday that net income fell 33 percent in the second quarter as it shed assets and sold oil and natural gas at lower prices.
Its results still beat Wall Street estimates, however, and the company’s stock price rose slightly in premarket trading.
ConocoPhillips has been aggressively selling refineries, pipelines and other assets over the past few years to remake itself as an independent oil and gas producer. It has sold more than $20 billion in assets and investments since 2010, and the company plans to sell billions more this year.
Those sales cut overall production by 6 percent in the second quarter. Meanwhile, a decline in commodity prices trimmed sales for what it did produce. Crude prices dropped by 6.5 percent while natural gas fell by 19.8 percent, the company said. Prices for other liquid hydrocarbons such as natural gas liquids and bitumen fell during the quarter as well.
As a result, the Houston company earned $2.27 billion, or $1.80 per share. That compared with $3.4 billion, or $2.41, a year earlier. Revenue fell 14 percent to $15.17 billion.
Excluding special items, ConocoPhillips earned $1.22. Analysts expected earnings of $1.20 per share on revenue of $9.06 billion, according to FactSet.
ConocoPhillips also spun off its downstream business, which includes refineries and pipelines, during the quarter. It made the split on April 30, and ConocoPhillips’ second-quarter results include just one month of downstream earnings. The same period in 2011 includes a full three months of downstream results.
The downstream business is now called Phillips 66.
Shares rose by 14 cents to $54.78 in premarket trading.