Chevron's third-quarter profit nearly tripled to $9.9 billion, driven largely by its refining business, according to the company's results. Earnings came in at $5.06 per share, up from $1.82 a year earlier, in figures released Friday. The profit jump came even though the company processed only 3% more crude than in the same quarter of the previous year, meaning the gains came from refining performance rather than higher throughput.
Adjusted earnings reached $10.4 billion, or $5.28 per share, well above the $4.89 per share that Wall Street analysts had expected. The adjusted result therefore beat consensus by about $0.39 per share. The company attributed the strength to its refining operations rather than to a significant increase in crude runs.
The downstream segment earned $4.93 billion, more than four times the $1.14 billion reported a year earlier, and accounted for roughly half of the quarter's total profit. U.S. refining profits were particularly strong, according to the company's disclosure. Because the earnings growth far outpaced the 3% increase in crude processed, the results point to higher per-barrel profitability in refining rather than volume growth as the main driver.
For operators across the refining sector, the quarter illustrates how much weight downstream earnings can carry in an integrated company's results. A downstream segment that more than quadrupled its profit year over year turned a solid quarter into a strong one, even with throughput essentially flat. That leverage works in both directions, and refiners will be watching whether the conditions behind these results persist into coming quarters.
Source: Oilprice
