Occidental Q2 profit spikes but misses Street

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum Corp posted a 57 percent increase in quarterly profit on Tuesday, as higher energy prices gave a big boost to the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, but results still missed expectations.

Second-quarter net income rose to $1.07 billion, or $1.31 per share, from $682 million, or 84 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Analysts had expected earnings of $1.33 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales rose 29 percent to $4.76 billion. Analysts had expected $4.72 billion.

Occidental said its second-quarter production rose by 3.6 percent to 743,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Higher crude oil prices played a big role in the growth. Benchmark U.S. oil prices averaged nearly $78 per barrel in the second quarter, down a dollar from the quarter before but well above the $60 average of the second quarter of 2009.

In May, the Los Angeles-based company laid out plans to grow its production by 6 to 9 percent every year through 2014, starting with a 2010 output target of 756,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder in New York, additional reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco)