Shell takes second place behind Exxon in oil supermajor earnings

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Exxon's 2023 profits were down 35 per cent but still the second highest in a decade.

US oil heavyweights Chevron and Exxon have beaten a subdued global oil price to post their second-biggest profits in ten years.

Exxon collected $36bn in net income for 2023, down 35 per cent on the $55.7bn in 2022 while Chevron saw revenues of $21.4bn, a 39 per cent slide on the previous year.

London-listed oil supermajor Shell beat out Chevron but missed Exxon’s total for 2023, posting a $26bn profit yesterday.

Both US-listed firms caught a boon from record levels of oil inventories in their home country through the past 12 months.

Crude oil production in the country set a record in 2023 and the current forecasts for 2024 and 2025 production look set to break records once more.

According to S&P Global, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) recently pushed up its outlook for 2024 US oil production by 100,000 b/d to 13.21m b/d and expects production growth to continue in 2025 with US output averaging 13.44 million b/d that year.

The enormous productivity seen across US oilfields through 2023 helped offset a price control stand-off with OPEC+ towards the end of the year, as the latter introduced cuts in production that are ongoing through the start of this year.

Both Chevron and Exxon also announced major acquisitions to end 2023, with Chevron set to pay $60bn for fellow domestic competitor Hess while Exxon made a $65bn move to acquire exploration firm Pioneer Natural Resources Group.

Both deals are currently being reviewed by competition regulators.

The two companies have also received increased criticism for their apparent disregard for clean energy transition efforts.

Chevron remains unsubscribed to both the global decarbonisation charter brought to the COP28 table and the UN-led methane reporting programme while Exxon recently filed a lawsuit to block climate change proposals from its investors.

Chevron shares were up 0.3 per cent at the time of writing today but remain 12 per cent down on the year, while Exxon’s are 0.4 per cent down today and 7.8 per cent down on the year.