Marathon Oil ( NYSE: MRO ) -1.4% post-market Wednesday after beating Q4 adjusted earnings expectations but posting declines in sales and production.
Q4 net income fell to $525M, or $0.82/share, from $649M, or $0.84/share, in the year-ago quarter, and revenues slipped to $1.73B from $1.8B a year earlier.
Q4 oil production fell 8% Y/Y to 166K net bbl/day from 181K net bbl/day, and total production slipped 5% to 333K boe/day from 333K boe/day in the same quarter a year earlier, as Winter Storm Elliot curbed oil production by ~5K net bbl/day of oil, mostly in the Bakken shale.
Marathon Oil ( MRO ) also announced a planned $1.9B-$2B capital spending budget for 2023, in line with analyst expectations, with production expected at 395K boe/day at the midpoint of guidance, including downtime associated with a planned Q2 E.G. turnaround, and maintenance-level oil output of 190K bbl/day.
The company plans to average ~9 rigs and 3-4 frac crews during 2023, excluding joint venture-related activity, and expects to run ~4 rigs and 2 frac crews in the Eagle Ford.
Marathon Oil ( MRO ) said it expects to return at least 40% of adjusted operating cash flow to shareholders, equating to a minimum shareholder return of $1.8B, assuming $80/bbl WTI, $3.00/MMBtu Henry Hub, and $20/MMBtu TTF commodity pricing.
Marathon Oil ( MRO ) shares have gained less than 2% so far this year and 27% during the past year .
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Marathon Oil slips as Q4 sales, production fell Y/Y