OREANDA-NEWS. May 08, 2014. Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) announced net income for the first quarter of 2014 of USD 1.4 billion (USD 1.75 per diluted share), compared with USD 1.4 billion (USD 1.68 per diluted share) for the first quarter of 2013.

In announcing the results, Stephen I. Chazen, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We continued to focus on our domestic production growth strategy, growing our oil production to 274,000 barrels per day. This was an increase of 10,000 barrels per day on a year-over-year basis and 4,000 barrels per day on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Our cash flow from operations was approximately USD 2.7 billion. Net of contributions from partners, we spent about USD 2.2 billion on capital expenditures and purchased approximately 10.5 million shares of our stock during the quarter. We are on track with our key long-term projects. The New Johnsonville chlor-alkali plant started production in March, the BridgeTex Pipeline is expected to start operations in the third quarter and the Al Hosn Gas Project is expected to start-up by the end of the year."

Oil and Gas
Oil and gas segment earnings were \\$2.1 billion for the first quarter of 2014, compared with USD 1.9 billion for the first quarter of 2013. The current quarter results, which mainly reflect higher domestic earnings, resulted from higher domestic oil, NGL and gas prices and higher worldwide oil volumes, partially offset by lower international oil prices, higher domestic operating costs and higher DD&A rates. The increase in operating costs was due to higher costs for CO2, steam and power, which are affected by crude oil and natural gas prices, along with increased downhole maintenance activity levels. Excluding the impact of these increases, the domestic costs were USD 0.10 per barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) lower than the 2013 average rate.

For the first quarter of 2014, daily oil and gas production volumes averaged 745,000 BOE, compared with 763,000 BOE in the first quarter of 2013. Domestic oil production increased by 10,000 barrels per day, but overall domestic production was lower by 4,000 BOE per day, mostly due to reduced domestic gas drilling. Middle East/North Africa production declined 14,000 BOE per day, mainly due to field and port strikes in Libya, insurgent activity in Yemen and the impact of full cost recovery and other adjustments under our production-sharing agreements, partially offset by an increase of 9,000 BOE per day in Qatar. Daily sales volumes were 735,000 BOE for the first quarter of 2014 and 746,000 BOE for the first quarter of 2013. Sales volumes were lower than production volumes due to the timing of liftings in Oxy’s international operations.

Oxy’s worldwide realized price for crude oil was USD 99.00 per barrel for the first quarter of 2014, compared with USD 98.07 per barrel for the first quarter of 2013. Domestic crude oil prices increased by almost 5 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to USD 95.94 per barrel, compared to USD 91.57 per barrel in the first quarter of 2013. Domestic NGL prices increased by 15 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to USD 46.69 per barrel, compared to USD 40.59 per barrel in the first quarter of 2013. Domestic gas prices increased by 48 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to USD 4.57 per MCF, compared with USD 3.08 in the first quarter of 2013. Middle East/North Africa crude oil prices were approximately 3 percent lower on a year-over-year basis for the first quarter of 2014.

On a sequential quarterly basis, worldwide realized crude oil prices were slightly lower and worldwide realized NGL prices increased approximately 3 percent. On a geographic basis, domestic crude oil prices were almost 2 percent higher and domestic gas prices were 37 percent higher.

Chemical
Chemical segment earnings for the first quarter of 2014 were USD 136 million, compared with USD 159 million in the first quarter of 2013. The decrease was primarily from lower caustic soda prices driven by new chlor-alkali capacity in the industry. Higher polyvinyl chloride and vinyl chloride margins, resulting from improvement in U.S. construction markets, along with higher volumes across all products, offset most of the decline.

Midstream, Marketing and Other
Midstream segment earnings were USD 170 million for the first quarter of 2014, compared with USD 215 million for the first quarter of 2013. The decrease reflected lower marketing and trading performance due to the timing of mark-to-market adjustments on trading contracts.