By Sabrina Valle and Seher Dareen
(Reuters) – Occidental Petroleum beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Wednesday, its first results since closing its $12 billion acquisition of CrownRock last week.
The Houston-based oil and gas company benefited from higher oil production and rising crude oil prices. Its global realized prices stood at $79.89 per barrel, compared with $73.59 per barrel a year earlier.
The company's shares rose 1.1% in after-hours trading.
Occidental (NYSE:) quarterly production came in at 1.26 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), up from 1.22 million boepd in the year-ago period and above analysts' estimate of 1.24 million boepd.
The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the quarter ended June 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of 77 cents per share, according to LSEG data.
Occidental updated its production target this year to about 1.315 billion barrels of oil and gas per day, from about 1.25 billion barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), to incorporate CrownRock's assets.
Third-quarter production is expected to rise by about 140,000 boepd to 1.39 billion boepd, he said.
The CrownRock acquisition raised Occidental's long-term debt to about $28 billion. The oil producer kept unchanged its plans to use cash generated through the acquisition and up to $6 billion in asset sales through 2026 to pay down the debt.
It is estimated that it will sell $970 million worth of assets this year. Occidental reaffirmed its plan to pay off $4.5 billion in short-term debt by August 2025.
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