Anadarko Swings to 4th-Quarter Profit; Revenue Falls

02/04/2013| 04:51pm US/Eastern

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   By Kristin Jones 
 

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (>> Anadarko Petroleum Corporation) swung to a fourth-quarter profit compared with a prior year hit by charges tied to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, though revenue declined as energy prices fell.

Anadarko's operations in shale fields such as the Eagle Ford in south Texas and the Wattenburg in northeast Colorado have driven higher production in recent quarters. The company has also had a string of exploration successes off the coast of Mozambique.

The energy producer has said capital spending won't increase along with projected sales, as Anadarko is working to reduce costs. Anadarko also in January sold an interest in soda-ash producer OCI Wyoming LP for about $292.5 million.

For the fourth quarter, Anadarko reported a profit of $203 million, or 40 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $358 million, or 72 cents a share. The year-earlier quarter reflected the partial impact of a $4 billion settlement Anadarko paid to U.K. oil company BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) to settle claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Anadarko owned a 25% stake in the blown-out well that was operated by BP.

Excluding the impact of the BP settlement and other items, per-share earnings rose to 91 cents from 85 cents. Revenue fell 11% to $3.41 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting per-share earnings of 71 cents on revenue of $3.38 billion.

Sales volume reached 68 million barrels of oil equivalent, up from 63 million BOE a year earlier and flat with the previous quarter. Revenue from oil and natural-gas liquids sales declined from a year earlier as selling prices fell.

The company said it added 434 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves in 2012, replacing 162% of the oil and gas it produced during the year.

Shares edged up 1.2% to $81.45 in after-hours trading. Through the close, the stock was down 4.6% in the past 12 months.

Write to Kristin Jones at kristin.jones@dowjones.com

Corrections & Amplifications

This item was corrected at 19:12 ET (00:12 GMT) to reflect the correct timing of the sale of Anadarko's interest in OCI Wyoming LP in the third paragraph. The sale occurred in January, not earlier this month as misstated in the original version.

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