Chevron swings to quarterly loss on $10.4 bln impairment charge

Chevron Corp on Friday posted a fourth-quarter loss as the oil major booked an impairment charge of $10.4 billion related largely to a deepwater Gulf of Mexico project, shale gas assets in Appalachia and the Kitmat LNG project in Canada. The company had in December warned of up to $11 billion in asset writedowns and said it was considering the sale of its stake in the Appalachian shale and in the proposed Kitmat project.

Net loss attributable to Chevron was $6.61 billion, or $3.51 per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of $3.73 billion, or $1.95 per share, a year earlier. The company also booked a gain of $1.2 billion in the quarter on the sale of its U.K. Central North Sea assets.

Chevron's net oil-equivalent production was flat at 3.08 million barrels per day in the quarter, while average sales prices fell in the United States and internationally.