ConocoPhillips reported a 76 percent drop in quarterly profits on Wednesday, as oil prices fell sharply from a year earlier and heavy fuel supplies and weak demand hurt its refining business.

Shares edged down about 1 percent to $44.30 in trading before the market open.

Net profit in the second quarter was $1.3 billion, or 87 cents per share, compared with $5.44 billion, or $3.50 per share a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 86 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Conoco's daily oil and gas output, excluding their 20 percent interest in Russian oil major Lukoil , was 1.87 million barrels-of-oil equivalent per day. That figure is above the company's July 7 forecast for production of 1.86 million BOE per day.

(Reporting by Anna Driver in Houston, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Conocophillips Energy