Murphy Oil Loss Narrower Than Estimates

(RTTNews) - Murphy Oil Corp (MUR) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net loss of $73.8 million or $0.42 per share compared with a profit of $129.4 million or $0.72 per share last year.

Excluding items, adjusted loss for the quarter was $0.48 per share compared with a profit of $0.90 per share a year ago.

Revenues for the quarter were lower at $738.3 million compared with $1.34 billion in the prior year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated a loss of $0.55 per share on revenues of $697.7 million for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Murphy said its production for the second quarter averaged 201,952 boepd, ahead of its guidance of 197,000 boepd, primarily attributed to new well performance in the Eagle Ford Shale and risked startup of the Medusa expansion project.

For the third quarter, the company expects production of 200,000 boepd.

For full year 2015, it increased production guidance to a range of 200,000 to 208,000 boepd, from prior range of 195,000 boepd to 207,000 boepd.

Capital expenditure is still forecast to be $2.3 billion for 2015.