Unocal posts loss for fourth quarter

Allen Baker

Unocal Corp. fell into red ink for the fourth quarter with a loss of $29 million, compared with a profit of $173 million in the last period of 2000. The company made $102 million in this year’s third quarter. Special items cut $88 million from the results in the fourth quarters of both 2001 and 2000. Without those items, the El Segundo, Calif., company would have recorded a $58 million profit for the 2001 quarter.

Special items in the 2001 quarter included a write-down of $86 million on the value of some properties in the Gulf of Mexico. The company also took a $24 million charge for environmental and litigation matters in the quarter, part of $95 million in reductions for those items for the year.

Unocal reported earnings of $615 million for 2001, down 19 percent from $760 million in 2000.

Production in the fourth quarter averaged 497,000 barrels of oil equivalent, up 5 percent from a year earlier. Prices were much lower — $2.42 per thousand cubic feet of gas, a decline of 36 percent, and $17.90 for each barrel of oil, also down 36 percent.

Alaska operations brought in $6 million in adjusted after-tax earnings, down from $23 million a year ago and $17 million in the third quarter. Lower 48 earnings from exploration and production were $10 million for the fourth quarter, while Canadian operations in the segment showed a loss of $12 million. Far East E&P is now the big driver, contributing $82 million to earnings in the quarter.

That figure was down from $127 million a year ago.

Alaska produced 101 million cubic feet of gas daily in the fourth quarter for Unocal, up 16 percent from 87 million cubic feet a year earlier. Third-quarter Alaska production was 83 million cubic feet a day. Gas brought $1.57 per thousand cubic feet, up from $1.20 a year ago. Liquids production from Alaska was 26,000 barrels daily, essentially unchanged from the year-ago figure and the third quarter of 2001.

Revenues from continuing operation in the quarter totaled $1.26 billion, down 55 percent from $2.78 billion a year earlier. Unocal took in $6.75 billion from continuing operations in 2001, down 27 percent from 2000’s figure.