Occidental Petroleum beats second-quarter profit expectations on higher production

By Sabrina Valle and Seher Dareen

(Reuters) -Occidental Petroleum beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Wednesday in its first results since closing its $12 billion takeover of CrownRock last week.

The Houston-based oil and gas company benefited from higher oil production and a rise in crude oil prices. The global realized crude oil price was $79.89 per barrel, compared to $73.59 per barrel a year earlier.

The company’s shares rose 1.1% in after-the-bell trading.

Occidental’s quarterly production was 1.26 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), higher than the 1.22 million boepd in the year-ago period and analysts’ estimate of 1.24 million boepd.

The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the quarter ended June 30, compared with the average analyst estimate of 77 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Occidental revised its production target this year to about 1,315 million barrels of oil and gas per day, from about 1,250 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), to integrate CrownRock’s assets.

Production is expected to increase by about 140,000 boepd to 1.390 million boepd in the third quarter, the report said.

The CrownRock acquisition increased Occidental’s long-term debt to approximately $28 billion. The oil producer maintained its plans to use the cash generated by the acquisition and up to $6 billion in asset sales through 2026 to pay down debt.

It estimates that $970 million in assets have been sold this year. Occidental reaffirmed its plan to repay $4.5 billion in short-term debt by August 2025.

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle and Seher Dareen; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Jonathan Oatis)