ConocoPhillips Shares Down on Reserves

Shares of petroleum company ConocoPhillips fell Thursday in heavy trading, a day after the company reported annual production and added reserves.

ConocoPhillips shares lost $1.80, or 2.8 percent, to $62.74 in afternoon New York Stock Exchange trading. Volume was more than double that of an average trading day.

The Houston-based company said Wednesday it produced about 880 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2006 and added about 2.6 billion barrels of reserves.

A.G. Edwards analyst Bruce Lanni said most of the new reserves came from acquisitions and joint ventures.

"Organic reserve replacement was a mere 10 percent to 15 percent," Lanni said in a client note. Most of the gains came from the company's acquisition of Houston-based Burlington Resources and from a larger stake in LUKOIL, Russia's largest oil company. Reservoirs performed poorly, and field life expectancy was revised downward, he observed.

Mi comentario: Creo que se hace la lectura negativa simplemente porque el entorno es negativo. Mientras aumenten las reservas, ¿qué más da si se hace de forma orgánica o con OPAs? Lo lógico es que se busque lo que menor coste tenga.