(Reuters) -ConocoPhillips beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, with higher production helping offset lower realized prices.
To lower debt after its $22.5-billion takeover of rival Marathon Oil, the company also announced it was signing agreements to divest its non-core Lower 48 assets for $600 million, which are expected to close in the first half of 2025.
Benchmark crude prices rose about 4% during the October-December quarter, encouraging companies to drill more.
However, ConocoPhillips’ total average realized prices fell 10% to $52.37 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) in the reported quarter, as Brent prices ended the year 3% lower compared with 2023.
This weighed on the company’s revenue, with ConocoPhillips reporting a 3.7% fall from a year earlier to $14.7 billion.
But higher production helped the company post a profit for the reported quarter. ConocoPhillips produced 2.18 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), up from 1.9 million boepd a year earlier.
Marathon Oil’s production added 126,000 boepd to the company in the reporting quarter.
ConocoPhillips forecast its output to be between 2.34 million and 2.38 million boepd in 2025.
Analysts at Roth MKM said the company’s 2025 production guidance was 1.3% below consensus of 2.39 million boepd, which could be related to the announced asset sales.
ConocoPhillips expects capital expenditure in 2025 to be $12.9 billion.
The Houston, Texas-based company aims to increase its returns to shareholders to $10 billion this year from $9.1 billion in 2024.
On an adjusted basis, ConocoPhillips reported a profit of $1.98 per share for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.84 according to data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Seher Dareen in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
