Chevron takes harder punch from low oil
The Wall Street Journal reported that a year ago, Chevron Corporation was booking the most profit per barrel among the world’s biggest oil companies, with its sights set on generating more cash than larger rivals Exxon Mobil Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
Today Chevron has slipped hard, as the drop in oil prices combined with its own ambitious expansion have weighed heavily on its earnings.
The company’s stock price has underperformed Exxon and Shell over the past year, during which oil prices fell sharply, after besting its two bigger competitors during the previous five years. Chevron’s stock price, which rose 2.5% on Monday to USD 85.89, is down 32% for the past year, compared with a 20% drop at Exxon.
Chevron’s USD 571 million profit in the second quarter was just 10% of its haul a year earlier. Had Chevron not booked a gain for selling a stake in an Australian refiner, the company would have posted a quarterly loss for the first time in almost 20 years. Excluding asset sales and noncash impairments, Chevron earned USD 1.8 billion, or 97 cents a share.
Exxon and other oil powerhouses have struggled to tame costs and deliver complex projects on time in recent years, but none has bet more on massive energy developments than Chevron. And as its cash flow sinks, the company is hitting snags with a suite of new, multibillion-dollar projects, aimed at boosting its oil and gas output by roughly 20% within two years—a much larger increase than its rivals have pursued.
Chevron said in a statement that “Multiple efforts to improve future earnings and cash flows are underway. We are focused on getting current projects under construction online, which will provide incremental production and cash generation.”
Chevron is shedding 1,500 workers, waiting to raise its dividend and has delayed some drilling projects to conserve cash.
Yet even as the company prepares to start up its marquee project, a USD 54-billion natural-gas export plant in Australia, it continues to struggle with delays and mishaps on other big-ticket investments.
Chevron continues to outspend Exxon, which generates twice as much revenue. If oil prices stay low, as many energy economists are now predicting, Chevron might have to sell more of its holdings to pay its dividend. Such a move could jeopardize the oil behemoth’s goal of tapping 3.1 million barrels of oil and gas a day by 2017.
Source : The Wall Street Journal