Marathon Oil First-quarter Loss Widens

Marathon Oil Corp posted a lower-than-expected first-quarter loss on Wednesday as cost cuts failed to offset low crude prices.

 

The company had a net loss of $407 million, or 56 cents per share, compared with $276 million, or 41 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

 

Excluding one-time items, Marathon lost 43 cents per share. By that measure, analysts expected a loss of 46 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

 

Production fell 14 percent to 388,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d).

 

Marathon cut its production costs 26 percent during the quarter, but the drop was not enough to offset the plunge in oil prices.

 

"We remained focused on lowering costs, reducing our capital program consistent with our plan, and delivering production at the upper end of guidance," Chief Executive Lee Tillman said in a statement.

 

Shares of Marathon fell 1.4 percent to $12 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.


(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Diane Craft, Bernard Orr)