OpeOluwani Akintayo
03 February 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The international oil major Chevron Corp failed to meet up with profits and production estimates for 2017.
Wall Street’s analysis showed that Chevron fell 55 cents below forecast as its fuel-making division presented lower-than-expected results despite huge gasoline and diesel margins around the world, analysis from the company’s fourth-quarter report has shown.
Exxon’s shares had dropped by 3 percent in its report, while Shell declared a net profit of $4.3 billion, representing a jump by 119 percent in fourth quarter 2017 as a result of the BG gas deal of 2016.
Production from Chevron’s oil wells also fell short of forecasts, limiting the drillers’ capacity to capture resurgent crude prices.
“One word: disappointing,” is how Brian Youngberg, a St. Louis-based analyst at Edward Jones & co., described the results.
“Chevron was close on production but Exxon was a significant miss,” he said. “The company continues to be challenged on that side.”
Exxon plunged 5.3 percent to $84.31 in New York trading at 9:58 a.m. after earlier dipping to $83.87 for the biggest intraday drop since January 2016. Exxon was one of the worst-performing blue chip stock on Friday.
Chevron sharply dropped 3.1 percent within one day since October.
Chevron’s production of oil and gas equated to 2.74 million barrels, less than the 2.802 million analysts expected. The company, though, said it found enough untapped fields to replace 155 percent of the crude and gas it pumped last year, the highest reserves replacement since 2011.
Its per-share earnings, excluding one-time items, amounted to 67 cents, far below the $1.22 average of 19 estimates from analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
However, Chevron is expected to start reaping the rewards after years of investment into expensive mega projects from Australia to Kazakhstan.
