Equinor: misses fourth-quarter forecasts; shares drop

(CercleFinance.com) - Norway's Equinor missed its fourth-quarter earnings forecasts, which was hit by lower-than-expected output and a larger-than-expected tax rate.


Adjusted operating profit rose 10% to 4.4 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, up from 4 billion dollars one year earlier, missing the consensus by 9%.

In particular, the E&P Norway and MMP (marketing, midstream and processing) divisions of the company missed forecasts.

Equinor said it delivered total equity production of 2.17 million barrels of oil equivalent over the quarter, up from 2.13 million boe per day in the same period of 2017.

Equinor shares were down 2.5%, underperforming the European oil and gas index (-1.1%).

"Equinor's weak earnings result followed strong beats by its larger peers, which benefited from their downstream exposure," said analysts at German broker Berenberg.

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