ConocoPhillips Posts Loss as Crude Prices Crash

ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) reported a quarterly loss that met Wall Street expectations on Thursday and the largest U.S. independent oil company lowered its 2015 spending target in response to the lingering slump in crude prices.

The Houston-based company said it would further cut its 2015 capital budget, to $10.2 billion from $11.0 billion.

"We are accelerating actions to position our company for low and volatile prices, while improving the underlying performance of the business," Ryan Lance, Conoco's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Conoco will divest assets and lower its cost structure in response to the more than 50 percent slide in crude oil prices from last year's high over $100 per barrel, it said.

Still, the company remains committed to a "compelling" dividend, said Lance.

Conoco posted a loss of $1.1 billion, or 87 cents per share, for the third quarter compared with a profit of $2.7 billion, or $2.17 per share, a year ago.

Excluding one-time items related to restructuring and the cancellation of a Gulf of Mexico drillship contract, Conoco had a loss of 38 cents per share. That compares with Wall Street expectations for a loss of 37 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Output from continuing operations, excluding Libya, was 1.554 million barrels oil equivalent per day (mboed), compared with 1.473 mboed a year ago.

(Reporting by Anna Driver and Swetha Gopinath; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Chizu Nomiyama)