Occidental posts losses of more than $5 billion
Thursday February 4, 2016
HOUSTON - Occidental Petroleum Corporation announced a fourth quarter loss of $5.18 billion on Thursday after the company to wrote down the value of its oil and gas businesses by billions of dollars.
The Houston-based oil and gas producer said it booked a total of $5.4 billion of after-tax charges, mostly due to cheap oil eroding the value of its assets.
Occidental CEO Steven Chazen said the company has about $4.4 billion in total cash on the balance sheet and plans to guard its remaining funds carefully.
We continue to focus on capital and operating efficiencies, he said in a written statement. Our 2015 capital spending was down by 36 percent compared to a year ago, and total company production still grew by 14 percent with Permian Resources growing 47 percent.
Occidental realized about $38.68 per barrel oil it produced in the fourth quarter of 2015, down 19 percent from the third quarter of 2015 and 46 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014.
Still, the company managed to produce more. Total average oil and gas volumes grew by 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent to 671,000 BOE in the fourth quarter of 2014. Those figures exclude assets in the Williston basin, which Occidental sold in November.