Exxon and Chevron quarterly balance exceeds expectations

The economic results of U.S. oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil exceeded analysts' expectations, leading to stock increases of nearly 5% and 0.78%, respectively, despite reporting lower earnings.

Chevron earned $14.422 billion in the first nine months of the year, down 24.53 compared to the same period last year. The company reported total revenue of $150.566 billion from January to September, a 2.08% decrease year-over-year.

For the third quarter, the period most closely watched by Wall Street, Chevron posted a net income of $4.487 billion, 31.24% lower than the same period in 2023.

Exxon Mobil, meanwhile, earned $26.070 billion in the first nine months of the year, down 8.13% from the same period in 2023. The Irving, Texas-based company announced that its revenue from January to September reached $266.159 billion, representing a 2.27% increase year-over-year.

In the third quarter alone, Exxon Mobil achieved a net profit of $8.610 billion, a decline of 5.07% from a year earlier.

“We achieved one of our best quarterly results in a decade,” said Darren Woods, Exxon Mobil's chairman and CEO, in a statement. Woods emphasized the $11.3 billion in cost cuts since 2019, noting that the company’s barrels of oil are now twice as profitable as they were in 2019.

Since early 2022, when the Ukraine war drove oil prices higher, these two American oil giants have posted increased profits and returned more than $155 billion to investors through dividends and share buybacks.

Chevron’s chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, highlighted the company’s "solid financial and operational results, the launch of key projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and a record amount of cash returned to shareholders this quarter."