It appears that we now have two of the country's best-known investment professionals at least in general agreement on a member of Big Oil.
You probably recall that about a year ago at this time, Warren Buffett was buying ConocoPhillips
Since that time, Buffett and his team have been shedding Conoco shares to harvest tax losses, and he calls buying the company when he did a “major mistake.” On Wednesday, CNBC personality Jim Cramer called Conoco "the worst of the integrateds." So it appears that Buffett and Cramer have achieved something of a meeting of the minds.
If there were any doubts about Conoco, they were done away with Wednesday, when the company told us about its latest quarterly results. Whereas BP
Clearly, the company has had to deal with the roller-coaster ride of pricing that crude and natural gas have presented during the past 18 months -- along with myriad other challenges. As a result, its upstream side earned $725 million in the quarter, compared to $4 billion in the same quarter a year ago. But giving credit where it's due, with new production coming on in Russia, Canada, Norway, China, Vietnam, and the U.K., daily output was nearly 7% higher in the quarter than a year ago.
On the downstream (refining and marketing) side, Conoco recorded a loss of $52 million, versus income of $664 million a year ago. The difference was largely the result of skimpy refining margins, an international plant utilization that averaged 72%, down from last year's 88%, and a $72 million non-cash impairment charge in the quarter.
So that's two down, with ExxonMobil
For related Foolishness:
- More Reasons to Love Your Rich Uncle Exxon
- Chevron Keeps It in the Ballpark
- Oil Sands Are Shifting for Total
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