Oct. 29--ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Jim Mulva said Wednesday that the company has no immediate plans to unload any of its oil refineries as part of a pared down capital spending plan for 2010.

"I don't see it at this point," Mulva said in response to an analyst's question during a conference call that followed the release of the company's third-quarter earnings.

ConocoPhillips, which has a refinery in Billings, is the nation's third-largest oil company. The company reported net income of $1.5 billion, or $1 per share for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, a 71 percent drop from the $5.2 billion for the same quarter in 2008. Lower natural gas prices and thin margins from its refining business contributed to the smaller profit.

Revenue totaled $41.3 billion, down from $71.4 billion in the year ago quarter.

After ConocoPhillips announced that it planned to sell $10 billion in assets from its energy and exploration and refining and marketing divisions over the next two years, some analysts predicted that some of its refineries and oil and gas properties may be put on the block.

"We believe the company will look to sell or joint venture certain refineries as well as realize value from the remaining marketing and pipeline assets," said a report from Credit Suisse.

Mulva addressed the refining issue Wednesday by saying that this is not a good time to consider selling refineries because of thin profit margins in that segment of the oil industry. But he said the company may consider disposing of some of its "less sophisticated" refineries in the future, perhaps by 2012 or 2013.

"This is not a good market to part with refineries, so that is not in our plan," Mulva said. "But we do believe the refinery market will improve somewhat from what we have experienced."

The Billings ConocoPhillips refinery is one of the smaller operations among the 12 refineries that the company operates in the United States, processing about 58,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

ConocoPhillips said it cut production of North American natural gas in late August because of low prices and that production at its refineries that process fuel was cut back because of weak margins and falling demand in the wake of a worldwide economic slowdown.

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