Occidental quarterly profit rises sharply on asset sales
Houston’s Occidental Petroleum Corp. posted a $1.9 billion quarterly profit that surged tenfold from the third quarter of last year.
Occidental’s quarterly revenue jumped nearly 75 percent from $3 billion last year to more than $5.2 billion during the third quarter.
Much of the Houston oil producer’s income gain came from the recent sale of its Centurion pipeline network in West Texas’ Permian Basin, as well as the sale of its oil exporting terminal in Corpus Christi.
Occidental is putting that money back into oil production growth in the Permian, as well as toward share repurchases and dividend payments to investors.
The company’s oil and gas production volumes jumped 16 percent from last year to nearly 700 million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said it was the best quarter for the company since 2014, when oil prices were still near $100 a barrel.
“All of our business segments exceeded key performance targets through production growth in the most profitable areas, lower costs and better price realizations,” Hollub said.
Occidental did record an accounting write-down of nearly $200 million from the recent decision of the Qatar government to take over an offshore field once Oxy’s contract expires in October 2019.