Local oil companies look to be delivering less than welcome news to shareholders.

Los Angeles' big three oil companies will be announcing earnings and holding shareholder meetings over the next eight days, and indications are the news won't be good.

On Monday (April 25), downtown L.A.-based Atlantic Richfield Co. and Unocal Corp. take the spotlight, with the first announcing first quarter results and the second hosting its annual stockholders' event to announce its results and discuss other matters. Shareholder meetings will be held by Westwood-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. on April 29 and by Arco on May 2.

Occidental reported its first-quarter results last Wednesday: a $40 million loss on revenues of $2.1 billion, which, stated company officials, translates into a loss of 19 cents a share. Discarding one-time nonrecurring gains, the per share loss works out to 20 cents, which compares to the 3 cent per share operating profit that the company reported one year earlier.

According to Occidental officials, "The decrease in 1994 earnings primarily resulted from substantially lower crude oil prices."

According to Standard & Poor's Co.'s Platt's Oilgram Price Report, the industry-standard West Texas Intermediate benchmark cash price of crude oil price was $14.82 per barrel during the first quarter vs. $19.85 a year earlier. Other grades of crude oil fetched lower prices.

Stock analysts estimate Arco's per share earnings at 90-97 cents for the first quarter vs. $1.55 a year earlier and a 12-20 cent per share profit for Unocal for the first quarter vs. year-earlier earnings of 36 cents per share.

Analysts agreed that Arco's earnings would suffer the most from this drop, since it is more tied to the price of crude oil.

"Arco is one of the few global oil companies that produces much more crude oil than it refines," said analyst Bernard Picchi of New York investment banking firm Kidder Peabody & Co.

Analyst Paul Ting of New York investment bank Oppenheimer & Co., noting that Arco's "upstream (crude oil production) earnings came down big," estimated earnings of $85 million for the first quarter vs. $168 million a year before.

He also predicted Arco's first-quarter oil refining and marketing earnings would dip to $85 million from the $93 million reported for the first quarter of 1993. Coal, fuel transportation and chemical-related earnings, he noted, are expected to be flat.

Nonetheless, Ting said he is bullish on the company. He forecast earnings would rise substantially in 1995 due to two factors: improved oil prices and further corporate restructuring.

As for the restructuring, he recalled that in 1986 Arco accelerated its refinery asset sales and entered into a early retirement program. Since then it has also spun off its Lyondale and Arco Chemical operations, sold significant parcels of oil- and gas-producing properties and implemented a share buy-back program.

And next, Ting said, "I think the company will announce a fairly massive cost reduction program in the next few months, including a thinning of the ranks."

But other analysts are less optimistic about Arco's future. New York-based credit rating agency Standard & Poor's Co. has Arco on its CreditWatch listing for a possible downgrade.

The listing reflects S&P's view, which runs contrary to Ting's, that oil prices, will stay weak. It didn't foresee a meaningful rise in demand and predicted OPEC would produce more supply.

S&P analysts also believe Arco must spend more money to comply with California clean air standards and find new resources to make up for declining reserves in Alaska. This combination, stated S&P analysts, should push the company's debt to net capital ratio above its current 45-47 percent - an already high level vs. its peer group's 30-40 percent.

S&P's outlook for Occidental Petroleum was also negative. It noted the company has strengthened its balance sheet and cut spending, staging a turnaround to earnings of $283 million profit last year vs. a $591 million loss in 1992. But the analysts said in the future these efforts would be more than offset by weak market conditions. For the year as a whole, S&P expected that "Occidental will be hard pressed to be profitable."

As for Unocal, S&P gave the company a "stable" rating vs. the "negative" rating given to the other two L.A. oil companies.

On the upside, Bob Weiss, a director in S&P's corporate finance group, noted Unocal has "a real good natural gas operation" and "international operations that benefit from a strong franchise in Thailand."

On the downside, he said, "Unocal still has to improve its refining and marketing operations, and must invest significantly in its California operations to meet the state's air quality standards."