Arco Reports Record Loss for Oil Firm : Arco Posts Record Loss for Oil Firm

Atlantic Richfield Co. today reported a record quarterly loss for an oil company, a $1.1-billion pool of red ink in the second quarter that resulted from a previously announced decision to streamline its business.

Arco’s loss, one of the biggest in the history of any company in the United States, had been expected because of an earlier decision to take a one-time-only $1.5-billion charge against earnings for retrenchments that include getting out of the business of selling gasoline in the East.

Meantime, Exxon Corp., the world’s largest industrial company, said its profit tumbled 44.8% as it set up a contingency fund for losses that may result from a court judgment, now being appealed, that it overpriced crude oil between 1975 and 1981.

AT&T; Set Record in ’83

Arco, based in Los Angeles, said the loss of $1.099 billion came on revenue of $5.771 billion, against a profit of $406 million, or $1.57 a share, on revenue of $6.093 billion a year earlier.

The loss trailed the record $4.87-billion loss posted in the fourth quarter of 1983 by American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which had resulted from bookkeeping changes to revalue assets before the breakup of the Bell System.

But it was almost as big as the $1.16-billion loss reported in the second quarter of 1984 by Continental Illinois Corp.