Occidental Petroleum Corp. said Thursday that its fourth quarter net income more than doubled as it kept oil production to take advantage of higher prices.

The Los Angeles oil company reported net income of $938 million ($1.15 per share), compared to $443 million (55 cents) a year earlier. Revenue rose 13 percent to $4.54 billion.

Excluding $120 million in after-tax charges, the company earned $1.30 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average expected adjusted per-share profit of $1.23 on revenue of $4.42 billion.

The company said it produced 645,000 barrels of oil and gas a day in 2009, the highest volume in the company’s history. Chief Executive Ray Irani said production this year is expected to rise by 5 to 8 percent.

Prices were below $40 a barrel for much of the year, but began going up in the fourth quarter. Occidental said it sold crude for an average of $69.39 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to $53.52 in the same period of 2008.

“Occidental reacted to the lower prices by reducing costs in key areas and managing our capital program,” Irani said. “We successfully reduced our oil and gas cash production costs, excluding production and property taxes, by 15 percent.”

For the full year, Occidental earned $2.92 billion ($3.58 a share). In 2008, when oil prices were above $147 a barrel for a time, the company earned $6.86 billion ($8.34 a share) on lower production than in 2009.

Shares closed up $1.07, or 1.5 percent, to $77.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.