Anadarko Books Lower-Than-Expected Loss On Cost Cuts

Anadarko Petroleum Corp swung to a loss in the second quarter, but beat analyst estimates by reporting smaller-than-expected losses as it tried to offset low oil prices with cost curbs and asset sales.

Anadarko booked a net loss attributable to common stockholders of US$692 million in the quarter ended June 30, compared to a net profit of US$61 million in the second quarter last year. The US$692-million loss translates into a loss of US$1.36 per diluted share. Adjusted for extraordinary items, the second-quarter loss was US$0.60 per share. This is below the US$0.80 loss per share expected by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, and lower than the average US$0.79 loss per share which 32 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast.

Anadarko cut costs and expenses to US$ 2.247 billion between April and June, from US$ 2.546 billion for the second quarter of 2015.

The group has generated some US$2.5 billion in monetizations so far in 2016, including proceeds in the second quarter from the secondary offering of Western Gas Equity Partners common units and divestitures of Wamsutter and non-core Permian assets. Anadarko targets to generate US$3.5 billion in total proceeds by the end of the year, chairman, president and CEO Al Walker said in the company statement. Back in March 2016, Anadarko had planned to monetize up to US$3 billion of assets in 2016.

Apart from higher proceeds from divestitures, the group also revised up on Tuesday its midpoint sales volume guidance for full-2016 by 2 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), on the back of higher sales from the Gulf of Mexico, Delaware and DJ basins. In March, the group had set its initial 2016 sales volume expectations, adjusted for divestitures, at 282 million to 286 MMBOE.

In a bid to further curb costs, at the beginning of the year Anadarko slashed quarterly dividend to US$0.05 per share from US$0.27 per share.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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