Chevron Earnings Bludgeoned by Low Crude Prices

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) reported first-quarter results before markets opened Friday. The oil and gas supermajor posted a diluted earnings per share loss of $0.39 on revenues of $23.55 billion. In the same period a year ago, the company reported earnings per share of $1.37 on revenues of $34.56 billion. First-quarter results also compare to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for a net loss of $0.20 and $21.43 billion in revenues.

Capital spending totaled $6.5 billion in the quarter, down from $8.6 billion in the same period last year. Chevron announced last October that it expects 2016 capex in a range of $25 billion to $28 billion and further reductions for 2017 and 2018 to a spending range of $20 billion to $24 billion.

U.S. upstream operations posted a loss of $850 million in the first quarter. Chevron attributed the loss to lower crude oil and natural gas price realizations, partially offset by lower operating expenses.

The company’s average U.S. sales price per barrel of crude oil and natural gas liquids was $26.00 in the quarter, down from $43.00, in the year-ago quarter. The realized average natural gas price dropped from $2.27 per thousand cubic feet to $1.32 year-over-year.
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CEO John Watson said:

Our upstream business was impacted by a more than 35 percent decline in crude oil prices. Our downstream operations continued to perform well, although overall industry conditions and margins this quarter were weaker than a year ago. … Our efforts are focused on improving free cash flow. We are controlling our spend and getting key projects under construction online, which will boost revenues. … We continue to lower our cost structure with better pricing, work flow efficiencies and matching our organizational size to expected future activity levels. Our capital spending is coming down. We are moving our focus to high-return, shorter-cycle projects and pacing longer-cycle investments.

Net domestic oil-equivalent production rose by 2,000 barrels per day to 701,000 barrels a day. Net liquids production was essentially flat at 490,000 barrels a day. and natural gas production rose just 1% to 1.27 billion cubic feet per day.

The company’s international upstream group posted a net loss of $609 million, compared with a profit of $2.02 billion in the first quarter of 2015. Currency exchange effects lowered earnings by $298 million.

The earnings announcement did not include guidance, but consensus estimates for the second quarter call for EPS of $0.18 on revenues of $24.42 billion. For the full year, EPS and revenues are estimated at $1.12 and $111.06 billion, respectively.

Chevron’s shares traded down about 1.3% just after Friday’s opening bell, at $101.06 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $110.80. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of $100.48 before the report.