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
kjetilmalkenes.hovland@wsj.com
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