Report: falling natural gas liquids prices could hurt Devon, WPX earnings

Falling natural gas liquids prices could hurt many energy company earnings, but Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp. and Tulsa-based WPX Energy could be most affected, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Natural gas liquids include ethane and propane. The industry has moved from dry gas to liquids-rich fields in recent years because of higher sales prices.

But increased production and an unusually warm winter have driven down the price for natural gas liquids.

“It’s a massive decline in prices,” Thomas Driscoll, a New York-based analyst for Barclays Plc, said of natural gas liquids in a phone interview with Bloomberg. “People are a little bit behind in their estimates” for revenue.

A spokesman for Devon declined comment to Bloomberg on Friday, and a spokeswoman for WPX did not immediatly return phone calls.

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