BP Share News (BP.)

By Andrew Callus LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Some of the western world's topoil companies this week abandoned output targets, missed profitforecasts and promised a tight rein on spending after turning indisappointing quarterly results. Thursday's slew of industry results saw Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil disappoint market analysts. Thepair are two of the industry's top three investor-controlledcompanies in the world. Thethird, Chevron, is due to report on Friday. Shell did what several of its peers did some time ago -abandon a promise to increase production growth so that it can meet its financial targets for cash flow growth and spending. The earnings reports follow a profit miss from industrynumber four BP on Tuesday. Only Total, Europe's No. 3 behind Shell and BP,impressed investors with its first quarterly rise in productionin three years. "It's a difficult time for the big integrateds. They are notseeing production growth, refining margins are deteriorating andcosts are going up. That's not a good combination," said Brian Youngberg, oil analyst with Edward Jones in St Louis. In contrast, smaller U.S. producers, which tend to have moreof their operations in the United States and relatively moreexposure to shale deposits, reported surging output. That islargely thanks to the drilling method known as hydraulicfracking that has unlocked oil and gas from shale deposits. SHALE OUTPUT SURGES FOR SMALLER PRODUCERS Among the smaller U.S. firms, ConocoPhillips reported a better-than-expected profit and raised its full-yearproduction forecast. It said its output from the Eagle Ford shale field in Texasalmost doubled to 121,000 BOE per day. Conoco's combined oil andgas production in the Eagle Ford shale field, the Bakken shalefield in North Dakota, and Permian Basin in Texas rose 47percent in the second quarter. Apache Corp, which reported a higher quarterlyprofit that matched Wall Street's expectations, sold its Gulf ofMexico shelf assets last month to focus more on onshoreproduction. It said its North American onshore liquidsproduction rose 42 percent to 175,000 barrels per day in thequarter. "We expect Apache to have an improved asset mix that willdrive more predictable production growth and strong returns,"Chief Executive Steve Farris said in a statement. Chesapeake Energy Corp's new Chief Executive DougLawler said the company was reviewing its partnerships andassets as the second largest U.S. natural gas provider tries tosimplify its structure and improve financial discipline. The company, which experienced a severe liquidity crunch in2012 after spending heavily for years to acquire drillingacreage, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as itproduced more crude oil than Wall Street targeted. Its sharesrose 7 percent to the highest level in more than a year.