Chevron’s third-quarter profit nearly tripled to $9.9 billion, with its refineries doing much of the heavy lifting despite processing just 3% more crude than a year earlier.
The company reported earnings of $5.06 per share Friday, up from $1.82 a year ago. Adjusted earnings reached $10.4 billion, or $5.28 per share, comfortably beating Wall Street’s estimate of $4.89.
Chevron’s downstream operations earned $4.93 billion, more than four times the $1.14 billion reported a year earlier. U.S. refining profits were particularly impressive, jumping to $3.59 billion from just $638 million.
Chevron’s U.S. refineries ran at 98% capacity, processing a record 1.09 million barrels per day. Fuel sales barely budged from last year at 1.3 million bpd, but U.S. downstream profits jumped from $638 million to $3.59 billion. Chevron didn’t need to sell much more fuel to make nearly $3 billion more.
With roughly 10% of global fuel-making capacity sidelined by the Iran war and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, Chevron is getting considerably more money for essentially the same amount of fuel.
Chevron also benefited from higher crude prices. Brent averaged $97 per barrel during the quarter, compared with $69 a year earlier, helping upstream earnings climb to $5.7 billion from $3.3 billion.
Worldwide production actually fell to 3.98 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from 4.09 million a year earlier, reflecting Middle East disruptions and lower production entitlements associated with higher prices. U.S. production remained above 2 million boe/d for the fifth consecutive quarter.
Chevron generated $16 billion in operating cash flow and $12 billion in free cash flow, compared with $4.9 billion in free cash flow a year earlier. It reduced total debt by $3.5 billion during the quarter and maintained share repurchases at $2.5 billion.
The company is also planning additional investment in Venezuela, where its joint ventures expect to spend $7 billion over the next five years. Improved commercial terms and expanded acreage could allow Chevron to more than double production there.
Chevron’s U.S. downstream business made almost $3 billion more than a year ago on essentially unchanged fuel sales. Its refineries kept running while plants in the Middle East and Russia were knocked offline. That’s worth a fortune in today’s market.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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