(Reuters) -ConocoPhillips raised its quarterly dividend and full-year production forecast on Thursday, after posting third-quarter earnings above estimates thanks to higher output and lower costs that offset weaker oil prices. Shares of the largest U.S. independent oil and gas producer rose 1.5% in premarket trade. The company's push to streamline operations and cut costs, including more than $1 billion in expected savings from its Marathon Oil acquisition, helped cushion the impact of a 13% drop in Brent crude prices from a year earlier. The $22.5 billion deal, completed last year, strengthened the company's U.S. shale portfolio and added assets in the Anadarko Basin and Equatorial Guinea. Higher contributions from U.S. onshore oilfields including the Delaware and Eagle Ford basins boosted production for the third quarter to 2.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), an increase of 482,000 boepd from the same period a year ago. For the fourth quarter, the company expects output of between 2.30 million and 2.34 million boepd. ConocoPhillips increased its ordinary dividend by 8% to $0.84 per share and lifted its full-year 2025 production forecast to 2.375 million boepd, up from a prior range of 2.35–2.37 million boepd. It also cut its 2025 operating cost forecast to $10.6 billion from as much as $10.9 billion. In its preliminary outlook for 2026, ConocoPhillips targeted about $12 billion in capital spending, $10.2 billion in operating costs and up to 2% underlying production growth, as the company advances large-scale projects including Alaska's Willow development and U.S. Gulf Coast LNG ventures. It posted an adjusted profit of $1.61 per share for the quarter ended September 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of $1.43 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. (Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
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