News wire — Chevron Corp has posted a fourth quarter 2021 adjusted earnings of $5.1 billion, but, missed estimates by analysts on weaker than expected oil and gas production that outweighed gains from recovering prices.
The first major oil company to report quarterly results posted adjusted earnings of $5.1 billion, or $2.65 a share. Analysts had forecast a $3.12 per share profit, Refinitiv showed, expecting a bigger boost from rebounding prices.
Chevron’s oil and gas production was 3.12 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil equivalent in the quarter, down 5% from a year earlier. A 181,000 bpd drop in international output was mostly because of the loss of an Indonesian production license.
“The miss was driven by International upstream primarily,” said Biraj Borkhataria, deputy head of European research at RBC Capital Markets. “Downstream earnings also disappointed, with weakness across both refining and chemicals.”
Investors had last week pushed Chevron shares to an all-time high on expectations high oil prices would drive earnings, climbing to $135.37 last week, a four-year high. Shares were off 3.5% to $130.64 in pre-market trading.
“A weak performance across the board,” Jefferies analysts wrote, adding that a 3% contraction in year-on-year production guidance for 2022 was “also likely to disappoint.”
Operating results were below analyst forecasts in its oil and gas and refining businesses, while upstream earnings were $4.15 billion, down from $5.14 billion in the third quarter.
Fourth quarter earnings from refining were $760 million, down from the $1.31 billion in the third quarter but up from a loss of $338 million a year ago.
The company said its first-quarter share buybacks would be at the higher end of the $3 billion to $5 billion annual range it had estimated last year. Chevron raised its dividend by 6% to $1.42 per share this week.
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