Anadarko Petroleum Loss Widens

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. posted a wider loss compared with a year earlier as the rout in the oil sector deepened, though the bottom line came in better than markets had expected.

Shares of Anadarko, down 52% in the past 12 months, rose 4.4% to $39.95 in after-hours trading.

The company, one of the largest independent oil and gas producers in the U.S., along with the wider sector, has been stressed by collapsing energy prices. Many of the factors that sent oil on a historic plummet over the past 19 months haven't changed. Oil prices fell for much of Monday, returning much of last week's modest gains as traders seemed to lose faith that producers would curb output and that China's slowing economy would stoke demand. Some analysts expect oil prices to hover between $20 and $40 a barrel until the second half of the year, with crude prices remaining highly volatile.

To handle the downturn, Anadarko lowered its 2015 budget by $3.37 billion, 36% less than in 2014—the start of the downturn—when it spent nearly $9.3 billion.

Anadarko has tried to take advantage of the downturn, but several efforts to expand have been stymied. Late last year, the company made a bid to buy Apache Corp., but the smaller company rebuffed Anadarko's all-stock offer. And Chief Executive Al Walker has repeatedly complained of being outbid for acreage in the Permian Basin, a prolific drilling region in West Texas.

For the latest quarter, Anadarko posted a loss of $1.25 billion, or $2.45 cents a share, compared with a loss of $395 million, or 78 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding certain items, the company posted a loss of 57 cents a share, compared with a year earlier when Anadarko had earnings of 37 cents a share.

Revenue fell 35% to $2.05 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of $1.08 on revenue of $2.1 billion.

The company, based in The Woodlands, Texas, has sold some of its holdings abroad in recent years, including its China unit, to raise cash to focus on extracting oil from unconventional formations in the U.S.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at [e-mail] and Erin Ailworth at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 01, 2016 17:55 ET (22:55 GMT)

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