MOSCOW (MRC) -- French oil and gas firm Total reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results on Thursday and announced further cost reductions and asset sales in 2016 to enable it to weather low oil prices, as CNBC said.
Oil prices have fallen by 70 percent since mid-2014 due to global oversupply and slow economic growth, hitting oil and gas company profits and forcing them to cut costs, reduce capital spending, delay projects and cut jobs.
"The resilience in a downgraded environment demonstrates the effectiveness of the group's integrated model," Total's Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said in a statement.
Total said its net adjusted income in the last quarter of 2015 fell 26 percent to USD2.1 billion year-on-year compared with the fourth quarter of 2014.
The firm's hydrocarbons output grew 5.5 percent to 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day year-on-year. Reuters analysts had expected Total's net adjusted profit at USD1.931 billion and production at 2.371 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The firm said it plans to cut capital spending to around USD19 billion in 2016 and targets asset sales of about USD4 billion.
Total said it took a one-time charge of USD3.7 billion in the quarter. It said it plans to pay a fourth-quarter dividend of 0.61 euros per share and shareholders will have the option of receiving the payment in cash or new discounted shares.
As informed earlier, Total signed long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) sale and purchase agreements with state-owned Indonesian company Pertamina for the supply of LNG volumes increasing from 0.4 to 1 million tonnes per year over a period of 15 years beginning 2020.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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