BLBG:Total Fourth-Quarter Earnings Rise 13% on Higher Oil Prices
Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil producer, reported a 13 percent increase in profit on higher crude prices.
Profit excluding changes in inventories advanced to 3.1 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in the fourth quarter from 2.7 billion euros a year earlier, the Paris-based company said today in a statement. That compares with the 3 billion-euro average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie has pledged to raise production from new fields and explore more aggressively for reserves to revive output growth. He has also focused on selling assets such as Total’s pipeline network in south western France as part of a $15 billion to $20 billion divestment plan. Total sold $6 billion of assets last year.
Total’s production fell 4 percent to 2.293 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the quarter because of a shutdown at the Elgin platform in the North Sea and flooding in Nigeria. Brent crude prices, the benchmark for two-thirds of the world, were the highest ever on average last year at $111.68 a barrel.
Net investment will be $22 billion in 2013, matching the previous two years, Total said.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the biggest European oil company, reported earnings below analysts’ expectations as lower North American fuel prices hurt profits. BP Plc said fourth-quarter profit declined as oil and natural gas production slipped while Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest energy company by market value, beat expectations on the strength of U.S. refining.
The explorer is investing in projects from shale drilling in the U.S. and Argentina to oil sands in Canada, a refinery in the Middle East and offshore gas projects in Australia.
Elgin Leak
Production last year was hurt by a natural-gas leak at the Elgin platform that forced the evacuation and shutdown of the North Sea deposits. The company is seeking to resume operations at the fields this quarter.
The company kept a target to increase output by an average of 3 percent a year from 2011 to 2015. It also maintained a longer-term goal of reaching about 3 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2017.
Total is pushing to make larger discoveries by drilling more exploration wells. It is assessing recent finds in Azerbaijan and French Guiana and preparing exploration wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Gabon.
The European refining margin indicator was $34 a ton in the fourth quarter, from $15.10 a ton a year earlier and down from $51 a ton the prior quarter.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net
