Arco Acquires Rest of Dubai Oil Field

Atlantic Richfield Co., the seventh-largest U.S. oil company, said its Arco Dubai Inc. subsidiary bought the 25% of a Dubai oil field it didn’t already own from Gulfstream Resources Canada Ltd. Los Angeles-based Arco also said it entered into a cost-sharing agreement with Gulfstream, based in Calgary, Canada, for the development of a $2.3-billion natural-gas project in Qatar. Arco will pay Gulfstream $14.2 million for the stake in the field and will pay the Canadian company’s share of the costs until production from the Qatari project reaches 1.2 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas. The agreement with Gulfstream comes two weeks after Arco said it would fire an unspecified number of its 20,000 employees as weak oil prices cut profit. The company, which had $19.3 billion in revenue last year, saw its earnings fall 44% in the second quarter this year as oil prices dropped to the lowest levels in more than a decade. Arco shares rose 38 cents to close at $71.63 on the NYSE.