Equinor’s Quarterly Profit Drops 19% on Weak Oil, LNG Outage

Krst processing plant in Rogaland in Norway. Photo by Carina Johansen /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Equinor ASA’s quarterly profit declined 19% on softer oil prices and a prolonged outage at its LNG facility in northern Norway.

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Adjusted operating income after tax fell to $1.74 billion in the second quarter, compared with $2.15 billion a year earlier, according to a statement from the company on Wednesday. The result was below the average analyst estimate of $1.8 billion. Equinor’s production was slightly higher year-on-year.

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Equinor also booked an impairment of $955 million on its Empire Wind project off New York, which was blocked and then unblocked this year by the Trump administration. Norway’s biggest energy company is among the first of Europe’s major oil and gas producers to report quarterly results.

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Oil prices were lower during the second quarter, despite a spike last month due to the conflict between Israel and Iran. President Donald Trump’s trade policies and moves by OPEC+ to keep increasing their output quotas, weighed on the outlook for energy demand and raised concerns around oversupply.

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“In the oil market, we do see a somewhat tight situation now,” Chief Financial Officer Torgrim Reitan said in a Bloomberg Television interview following the release of the quarterly results. “Oil has come down by 20% since last year, but gas prices are actually up.”

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In June, Reitan said he was confident Equinor could weather downturns in the oil price, adding that new projects in development have a break-even below $40 a barrel. Global benchmark Brent was trading near $69 on Wednesday.

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Equinor’s marketing, midstream and processing division, reported adjusted operating income of $333 million, lower than a year ago, with the “optimization of piped gas trading in Europe, offset by a limited result from LNG, which was adversely affected by turnaround activity.”

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Total equity production was about 2.1 million barrels of oil equivalent a day. Output from the Johan Castberg field, which came on stream earlier this year, mostly offset maintenance-related stoppages at Hammerfest liquefied natural gas facility and the Kollsnes gas processing plant.

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“We are on track to deliver production growth in 2025 in line with our guidance” Chief Executive Officer Anders Opedal said in the statement.

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Equinor said the Empire Wind impairment reflected “regulatory changes causing loss of synergies from future offshore wind projects and increased exposure to tariffs.” As of March, phase 1 had a gross book value of about $2.5 billion. The 810-megawatt project, with 54 turbines designed to power 500,000 homes, is slated to begin commercial operation in 2027.

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(Updates throughout.)

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