Statoil Profit, Revenue Down but Beats Forecasts

By Kjetil Malkenes Hovland

OSLO--Norway's Statoil ASA (STO) on Tuesday posted a 16% drop in second-quarter net profit on the year, beating expectations as a sales gain offset impairments and lower prices, and slashed this year's capital expenditure by 3% to $17.5 billion.

Net profit was 10.0 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.22 billion), compared with NOK11.9 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected a net profit of NOK5.4 billion. Revenue fell 13% to NOK124.4 billion, beating expectations of NOK121.6 billion.

The company said it recorded a gain of NOK12.3 billion on the sale of a stake in the Shah Deniz project in Azerbaijan. It recorded net impairment losses of NOK3.1 billion, as impairments in Norway and the Gulf of Mexico were partly offset by a reversed impairment on an unconventional asset in North America amid improved operations.

Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, a measure of the company's underlying performance, fell to NOK22.4 billion, from NOK32.3 billion a year earlier. The figure was weaker than during the oil-price plunge in 2008 and 2009, but beat expectations of NOK19.6 billion.

-Write to Kjetil Malkenes Hovland at [e-mail]

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