flags fly outside conocophillips offices in houston texas us april 30 2019 reutersloren elliott may 4 reuters  conocophillips copn reported firstquarter profit that beat wall street expectations on tuesday as a vaccinesled return of travel demand and a winter storm that swept parts of the united states in february boosted prices for oil and gas higher crude prices and deep cost cuts implemented last year at the peak of a downturn are helping us oil and gas companies deliver improved firstquarter profit and cash flow still chief executive officer ryan lance warned global oil demand has yet to recover to prepandemic levels and estimated excess global supply of 5 million to 6 million barrels per day we still have some balancing we need to do he told investors on an earnings call stronger fuel prices delivered cash flow from operations of 21 billion despite a 1 billion hit from the unraveling of hedges and restructuring expenses from conocophillips acquisition of shale rival concho resources conoco sold its oil and gas for an average 4536 per barrel during the quarter 17 higher than the yearago period however output slipped 4 from a year ago due to the impact of a february storm the company vowed to cut debt by 5 billion over the next five years and to sell its 10 stake in canadian producer cenovus energy inc cveto by the end of 2022 proceeds from the share sale will be used to increase stock buybacks conoco said as of mondays close the stake would be worth c206 billion 167 billion conocos total output excluding libya was 149 million barrels of oil equivalent per day boepd compared with 114 million boepd in the fourth quarter it expects output this quarter to be 150 million to 154 million boepd the company has restarted four drilling rigs in alaska after halting activity due to the pandemic in 2020 officials said adjusted profit was 69 cents per share well above analysts average estimate of 51 cents according to refinitiv ibes data shares of conocophillips were down a fraction in midday trading at 5240 reporting by shariq khan in bengaluru editing by arun koyyur