Marathon Oil beats fourth-quarter profit estimates on higher crude prices

(Reuters) -Oil and gas producer Marathon Oil Corp on Wednesday beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit, boosted by higher crude prices as the geopolitical crisis in eastern Europe crimped global energy supplies.

Oil prices had fallen towards the end of last year, but were still trading at a multi-year high amid Western sanctions against major energy producer Russia and the decision of producer group OPEC+ to cut output by 2 million barrels per day in an already tight energy market.

Prices of global benchmark Brent crude averaged about $88.63 per barrel for the October-December quarter, about 11% higher compared with the corresponding period in 2021.

Marathon forecast 2023 spending to be in the range of $1.9 billion to $2 billion, higher than expectations of $1.4 billion for 2022, and said it expects its 2023 production to be 395,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

Production in the reported quarter stood at 333,000 boepd, compared to 353,000 boepd in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Houston, Texas-based Marathon‘s adjusted net income stood at 88 cents per share, for the three-months ended Dec. 31, beating analysts’ average expectation of 84 cents per share, according to Refinitiv IBES.

(Reporting by Ankit Kumar; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)