Occidental Petroleum Net Increases Slightly for Year

Occidental Petroleum Corp., the nation’s ninth-largest oil firm in terms of sales, reported that net earnings were off 25.1% for the fourth quarter and rose slightly more than one-third of a percent for the year.

However, the company noted that per-share earnings on its common stock were up 51% for the year, primarily because the company’s repurchase of preferred stock reduced by more than $100 million the amount that it had to pay in dividends. It paid $260.8 million in dividends in 1984, compared to $367.5 million in 1983.

The Los Angeles-based company also said that it had entirely repaid the $4-billion debt that it incurred with the purchase of Cities Service Co. in 1982 and that it ended 1984 with $1 billion in working capital, compared to $76 million a year earlier.

Occidental also has $2 billion in available credit, but the company declined to say if it is contemplating the purchase of another oil firm in the aftermath of its aborted $3.3-billion merger last month with Diamond Shamrock Corp. of Dallas.

Occidental’s chairman, Armand Hammer, has said he feels it is cheaper to buy new oil reserves on Wall Street than to discover them.

For the entire year, earnings were relatively flat, rising to $568.7 million, or $3.08 per share, on sales of $15.6 billion from $566.7 million, or $2.04 per share, on sales of $19.1 billion last year.

For the three months ended last Dec. 31, Occidental earned $184.2 million, or $1.17 per share, on sales of $4 billion, compared to a year earlier, when it earned $246 million, or $1.76 per share, on sales of $4.7 billion.

During the fourth quarter last year, only Occidental’s chemical division posted improved earnings, turning in a profit of $17.6 million, compared to a loss of $15 million a year earlier. Earnings were off by 9.3% to $314.2 million in its oil and gas operations and by 85.2% to $3.1 million in its agribusiness unit, while losses in its coal division more than tripled to $24 million.