This week will market the crest of earnings season. Now more than half of the Dow Jones industrial Average components have reported earnings, and Friday will be the morning that both Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) share their latest results.

So far, Exxon Mobil seems to have more cushion for its capital plans. That may be with far less being spent in share buybacks, but its dividend just has more cushion. 24/7 Wall St. wanted to compare and contrast some of the key issues that have been driving both Dow components and oil and gas leaders.

We have looked at Thomson Reuters for consensus estimates, but we have also decided to look at Exxon Mobil and Chevron for trading history, the quality of dividend payments and other key issues on each company. Keep in mind that oil companies do not generally offer formal guidance for forward earnings, and the recent rout in oil prices is only likely to create that much more uncertainty and disparity ahead.

Exxon Mobil’s consensus estimates are $0.89 earnings per share (EPS) and $63.75 billion in revenues. Exxon’s diversification into natural gas is not likely to add much but additional pressure for now. Chevron’s consensus estimates are $0.76 EPS and $29.76 billion in revenues.

Exxon Mobil now pays a 3.55% yield, compared with a 4.75% yield for Chevron. A look at the expected payouts, and an ability to keep those payouts alive, is as follows:

• Exxon Mobil’s $2.92 payout compares to $7.36 in EPS for 2014, but compares to $3.86 EPS expected in 2015 and $4.06 expected in 2016.
• Chevron’s $4.28 payout compares to 2014 EPS of $10.14, but is now lower than the $3.19 EPS expected for 2015 and $4.15 for 2016.

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Exxon is paying out less of its expected earnings than Chevron, and Chevron is paying out more now in dividends than it is expected to have from operating earnings in each 2015 and 2016.

Another issue here is that size, or relative size, may matter. Exxon Mobil is much larger by market value, at $341 billion versus $169 billion for Chevron. What about cash and liquidity? Exxon had cash and short-term investments of $4.4 billion and another $34 billion in long-term investments. Chevron had cash and short-term investments of $12.5 billion and another $29 billion in long-term investments.

That puts the cash and liquidity arsenal, excluding credit lines, at $38.5 billion for Exxon Mobil and $41.5 billion for Chevron. Cash and liquidity matter here as both companies are expected to gobble up substantial distressed oil and gas assets when the dust starts to settle.

Shares of Chevron were last seen on Wednesday trading at $89.96, with a consensus analyst price target of $93.60 and a 52-week trading range of $69.58 to $120.17. Over the past week, the stock has fallen about 2.5%. However the stock is down 19.3% year to date.

Exxon shares were recently trading at $81.92, with a consensus price target of $81.84 and a 52-week range of $66.55 to $97.20. In the past week, Exxon shares rose 0.3%, while year to date the stock is down 10%.

Maybe the more fair question about which company will have better earnings should be which oil and gas giant will have “the least bad” earnings.

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