10 October 2013, News Wires – US supermajor Chevron expects to post lower earnings in the third quarter than in the second quarter despite seeing slightly higher upstream production figures for the period.
The company’s international oil and gas output averaged 1.938 million barrels of oil equivalent per day through the first two months of the quarter, Chevron said in an interim update on Wednesday.
That is slightly higher than the 1.981 million boepd produced last quarter and outpaces the 1.879 million boepd produced in the third quarter last year.
US output, however, is lower, coming in at around 651,000 boepd and down from 659,000 a quarter ago. The decrease was due primarily to planned turnaround activity “across multiple assets” in the US Gulf of Mexico, Chevron said.
The production rate is higher than the 637,000 boepd pumped in the third quarter last year, but lower than in both the fourth quarter and the first quarter of 2013.
The “modestly higher” international performance “reflect(s) less turnaround and maintenance activity related to several different assets worldwide”, Chevron said.
Downstream results fared even worse, hit by maintenance needs at various refineries.
The California-based company also said second-quarter earnings included foreign exchange gains of about $300 million. It anticipates similarly sized losses for the third quarter.
Chevron shares fell as much as 1.2% in after-hours trading.
The company reports full third-quarter results on 1 November.
– Upstream