American oil giant ExxonMobil Corporation posted yet another record-breaking profit with earnings for the third quarter of 2022 totalling US$19.7 billion.
In the second quarter, the company recorded US$17.9 billion in earnings, its largest quarterly record ever at that time. This was almost a four-fold increase over earnings made during the same period in 2021.
In the 2022 first quarter, Exxon made US$$5.5 billion.
Earnings for the year now total an eye-popping US$43.1 billion. This is almost double the US$23 billion it made for the entire year of 2021.
Ahead of its earnings call on Friday, Exxon said its third-quarter results included net favourable identified items of nearly US$1 billion associated with the completion of divestments in Canada and Romania.
Exxon was keen to note that shareholder distributions were US$8.2 billion for the reporting quarter, including US$3.7 billion of dividends and US$4.5 billion of share repurchases, bringing year-to-date repurchases to US$10.5 billion. This is consistent with the company’s plan to repurchase up to US$30 billion of shares through 2023.
For its upstream business, it was keen to note that 2022 earnings were US$12.4 billion compared to US$11.4 billion made in the second quarter. It said these earnings benefited from higher volumes and improved mix from growth in the company’s advantaged assets in Guyana and the Permian.
Over US$5 billion in investments for Stabroek operations already recovered by Exxon | OilNOW
The Permian it said delivered record production in the quarter of nearly 560,000 oil-equivalent barrels a day.
Offshore Guyana, it said the quarterly average gross production increased to nearly 360,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day, with Liza Phase 1 and 2 production exceeding design capacity by more than 15,000 barrels per day. In addition, two new discoveries were announced in the Stabroek block this week, adding to the company’s extensive portfolio of development opportunities.
“Our strong third-quarter results reflect the hard work of our people to invest in and build businesses critical to meeting the demand we see today,” commented Darren Woods, Chairman and Chief Executive officer.
He added that the investments management has made, even though the pandemic, enabled the company to increase production to address the needs of consumers. Woods said rigorous cost control and growth of higher-margin petroleum and chemical products also contributed to earnings and cash flow growth in the quarter.
At the same time, Woods noted that Exxon is expanding its Low Carbon Solutions business with the signing of the largest-of-its-kind customer contract to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide. Woods said this demonstrates Exxon’s ability to offer competitive emission-reduction services to large industrial customers around the world.
