Total, Statoil profits plummet

By Tom Bergin

LONDON (Reuters) - France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Norwegian rival Statoil (STL.OL) have added to the downbeat tone from the oil industry, promising to tackle a tough environment with cost cuts as they announced big drops in third-quarter profit.

Both companies have benefited from a recovery in crude prices in recent months but Statoil said the price rise had a weak foundation.

Norway's largest company offered little hope on Wednesday that natural gas prices -- battered by lower demand due to the economic crisis -- would recover any time soon, while Total, Europe's largest refiner by capacity, said crude processors faced a "very difficult" environment.

"Although we see signs of improvement in the global economy, there is no firm evidence that industry investment, employment and private consumption have recovered in a sustainable way," Statoil chief executive Helge Lund said.

"This calls for cautiousness," he said.

Total's adjusted third-quarter net income fell 54 percent to 1.87 billion euros (1.67 billion pounds), in line with an average forecast of 1.84 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Statoil's adjusted net profit fell 40 percent to 9.3 billion Norwegian crowns (980 million pounds) in July-September, ahead of a mean forecast of 8.4 billion in a Reuters poll.

Adjusted net income strips out gains or losses from one-off items such as asset sales, and unrealised gains related to changes in the value of fuel inventories. Analysts consider it the best measure of a company's underlying performance.