Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) on July 9 announced its board of directors has authorized an expansion of the company's share-repurchase program to $4 billion, representing a $1 billion increase.

The company completed the first $3 billion of this program on June 29. In addition, Anadarko announced a $500 million increase to its debt-reduction program, bringing the total planned to $1.5 billion. These measures raise the aggregate equity and debt-buyback programs to $5.5 billion, in addition to the recent increase of about $400 million (annualized) to the company's common dividend.

"Today's announcement further reinforces our commitment to our durable strategy of delivering attractive, capital-efficient growth and applying our free cash flow in a balanced manner to fund the repurchase of stock and debt, along with dividend increases over time," said Bob Gwin, Anadarko's executive vice president of finance and CFO. "We aggressively completed the previously announced $3 billion share-repurchase program in just over nine months. We also retired $100 million of debt at maturity in May with an additional $900 million expected to be retired upon maturity in the first half of 2019. Combined with healthy, returns-focused growth, these actions materially enhance debt-adjusted per-share performance and create meaningful shareholder value."

The board authorization extends through the end of June 2019, and share repurchases will be made in accordance with applicable securities laws from time to time in open market or private transactions, depending on market conditions, and may be discontinued at any time.