Murphy Oil revenue up 46% for quarter

Loss cut, but results short of forecasts

Graphs showing Murphy Oil first quarter information.
Graphs showing Murphy Oil first quarter information.

Murphy Oil Corp.'s first-quarter revenue jumped nearly 46% over last year's, driven by higher fuel prices and demand, the company said Wednesday.

Reporting before the stock markets opened, the oil and natural gas company formerly based in El Dorado posted revenue of $553 million. Revenue was $380 million in the first quarter of 2021.

Murphy Oil also reported a net loss of $113.3 million, or 73 cents per share, for the quarter that ended March 31, compared with a net loss of $287.4 million, or $1.87 per share, in the same quarter last year.

The results, though improved, still fell far short of the average per-share earnings estimate of 58 cents from 12 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Murphy Oil's shares rose 86 cents, or 2.21%, to close Wednesday at $39.76 on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares have traded between $17.20 and $44.63 in the past year.

The company cut its losses in continuing operations during the quarter to $65 million, down from $267 million in the same period a year ago. Income of $231.4 million from exploration and production, mostly in the U.S., contributed to that improvement.

The company produced 141 million barrels of oil equivalent per day -- a measure used by oil and gas companies to allow for like-to-like comparisons -- during the quarter.

In its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said oil and natural gas benchmark prices rose in the quarter because of market concerns over supply shortfalls.

Those concerns included a lack of investment in the exploration and production sector; ongoing demand as national economies began to recover from the covid-19 pandemic; and geopolitical uncertainty in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices shot up 74% between the first quarter of 2021 and the same period this year, the company noted. West Texas Intermediate is a high-quality oil that serves as one of the main global oil benchmarks, according to Investopedia.com.

Murphy Oil said last month, just after the first quarter ended, that a floating deepwater development project in the Gulf of Mexico has begun producing oil.

Roger W. Jenkins, Murphy Oil's president and chief executive officer, said at that time that the company expected the production coming online to generate "significant" free cash flow. That income will let Murphy Oil reduce its debt by up to $650 million this year, he said.

Murphy Oil is an international oil and natural gas exploration and production company with offshore production in Southeast Asia, Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as onshore operations in the U.S. and Canada. It's the fifth-largest producer in the Gulf.

In 2020, the company moved both its longtime headquarters in El Dorado and an office in Canada to Houston. In the U.S., Murphy Oil produces the bulk of its oil and natural gas from fields in the Eagle Ford Shale area of south Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico.

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