MIKAEL HOLTER

STAVANGER, Norway (Bloomberg) -- Statoil ASA, Norway’s biggest oil company, said third-quarter earnings fell 60% as the average crude price in the period dropped to the lowest since 2009. 

Adjusted net income, which excludes financial and other items, fell to 3.7 billion kroner ($436 million) from 9.1 billion kroner a year earlier, the Stavanger-based company said in a statement. That missed a 5.1 billion-krone estimate in a Bloomberg poll of analysts.

"We continue to reduce underlying operational costs and deliver a quarter with strong operational performance and solid results from marketing and trading,” Eldar Saetre, Statoil’s CEO, said in a statement. “In the third quarter, our financial results continued to be affected by low liquids prices.”

The company said it has reduced the guided capital expenditure level by $1 billion to about $16.5 billion in 2015. It will also increase the “guided production growth to above 3% for 2015,” according to the statement.

Statoil, 67% owned by the Norwegian government, is cutting investments and costs alongside competitors such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc. The world’s biggest oil companies are seeking to shield shareholder payouts after oil prices fell as low as $42/bbl in August from highs of about $115 in June, 2014. BP reported profit on Tuesday that beat analyst estimates thanks to refining results as it deepened cost cuts.