McMoran: Exploration Isn’t Paying Off (MMR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Burning_money_pic_3McMoran Exploration Company (NYSE:MMR) reported full-year 2008 and fourth quarter results yesterday, and it definitely wasn’t pretty. The company’s full-year EPS was -$3.79, and for the fourth quarter the EPS loss totaled -$4.39.

McMoran can’t even blame mark-to-market accounting for the loss. Thecompany had a cash gain of $8.7 million and a non-cash gain of $43.2million in the fourth quarter on its derivative contracts.

The company is still suffering from the effects of the 2008 Gulfhurricanes, which caused production to be cut nearly in half. Thecompany sees near-normal production rates by mid-2009.

McMoran reported $93.5 million in cash and total debt of $375 million,which it says is a reduction of $426 million from one year ago.

Shares opened about $0.30 lower this morning and have continued to fallin early trading, now down about $0.60, or 7%. The 52-week low is$7.39/share, so that’s within range today.

Paul Ausick
January 22, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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