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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BigBull who wrote (42924)	4/21/1999 11:53:00 PM
From: Jon Cave	Respond to of 95453

Exxon, Others See Oil Turnaround Full Coverage Gas Prices Up Nationwide By Paul Thomasch NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Corp. (NYSE:XON - news) led a crop of oil companies reporting sharply lower first quarter earnings Wednesday, though all are looking at a brighter future following the recent rebound in oil prices. Shares in Exxon, the nation's largest oil company, slipped after it said net income including special charges fell to $1.02 billion in the first quarter, compared to $1.82 billion in the period last year. Exxon's stock fell $2.44 to $78.44. Burlington Resources Inc. (NYSE:BR - news) and Murphy Oil Corp. (NYSE:MUR - news), which both took losses in the quarter, also saw their stocks slide Wednesday. Even so, oil shares have lately reaped the benefits of a two-month rally that has pushed crude prices about 55 percent higher. If it holds, analysts say the rebound in prices should mean the worst is over for oil companies. Indeed, BT Alex Brown's Adam Sieminski said by the third quarter Exxon's income should beat earnings from the same period of last year. ''The rest of the industry should look like Exxon,'' he added. ''The first quarter looks bad, second quarter shifts into neutral, and the third quarter and fourth quarter should look pretty good.'' But prices rose too late to salvage first quarter earnings, which so far have matched analysts' low expectations. Oil and gas producer Burlington, widely considered a barometer of independent oil companies, reported a first quarter net loss of $10 million, compared with net income of $48 million in the year-earlier quarter. ''Our financial results for the first quarter of this year were not what we hoped for and the primary culprit was depressed oil and gas prices,'' Burlington's chairman and chief executive officer, Bobby Shackouls, said in a conference call. But he added that ''it appears that the worst is now behind us.'' For the first quarter, Murphy Oil, based in El Dorado, Ark., posted a net loss of $7 million, or 15 cents a share after special charges. This was down from profits of $15.5 million, or 35 cents a share in the quarter last year. Murphy, like the much larger Exxon, was hard hit by poor refining and marketing returns, which suffered from razor thin margins on products like gasoline and heating oil. Murphy said worldwide ''downstream'' operations earned just $2.9 million in the current quarter, compared to $12.4 million a year ago. Companies such as Marathon Oil, Tosco Corp. (NYSE:TOS - news), and Sunoco Inc. (NYSE:SUN - news), all of which run U.S. oil refineries, could report similar damage when they release first quarter earnings Thursday, analysts said. Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CHV - news) also reports results Thursday. First Call Corp., which tracks earnings, said analysts foresee profits of 50 cents a share for Chevron, down from 74 cents a share last year. Burlington stock traded 62.5 cents lower at $42.88 Wednesday, while shares of Murphy fell 50 cents to $45 in composite trade on the New York Stock Exchange.