Murphy income best in 4 years; firm nets $103M, 59 cents a share

Murphy Oil reported net income of $103.4 million for the fourth quarter compared with a loss of $286.8 million in the same period of 2017, the El Dorado oil and natural gas firm said Thursday.

Murphy Oil earned 59 cents a share, beating the average estimate of 27 cents a share projected by 13 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Shares of Murphy Oil fell 50 cents, or 1.8 percent, to close Thursday at $27.35 in trading on the Nasdaq exchange.

For the year, Murphy had earnings of $411.1 million compared with a loss of $311.88 million for 2017. Murphy's revenue for the year was $2.6 billion compared with $2.2 billion in 2017.

"[It] was a really good year for Murphy with our net income at the highest level in four years," Roger Jenkins, Murphy's chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. "We continued to benefit from our diverse, growing, oil-weighted portfolio that was able to continuously generate high cash flow per barrel."

Murphy Oil's preliminary year-end 2018 proved reserves were 816 barrels of oil equivalent, a 17 percent increase from 698 million barrels at the end of 2017.

The increase in reserves was mainly attributed to the acquisition of Gulf of Mexico oil reserves, including the addition of more than 70 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves.

"Our team did an excellent job adding low-cost, high-value reserves in 2018," Jenkins said in the statement. "We are especially pleased with the additional oil reserves from our new Gulf of Mexico assets where the initial booking at year-end was above our original estimated volumes."

Murphy is pleased with its North American unconventional business, Jenkins said.

"Our steadfast Tupper Montney asset [in British Columbia] continues to provide free cash flow at current prices due to our market diversity and execution," Jenkins said.

Success continues in the Kaybob Duvernay formation in Alberta, Jenkins said.

"Strong well performance across the [operation], and promising early results in the Two Creeks area support our plan to retain the vast majority of our acreage," Jenkins said.

Murphy Oil is an international oil and natural gas exploration and production company. It has offshore production in Southeast Asia, Canada and the Gulf of Mexico as well as North American onshore operations.

Business on 02/01/2019

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