Oil majors’ Q2 earnings reflect oil market recovery

With the Q2 results out, it is obvious that the recovery of oil market is beginning to be reflected in the earnings of the global oil majors.

Chevron doubled earnings, reporting $3.8 billion for the second quarter, more than twice as much as a year earlier. Profit in Chevron’s business that produces oil and gas jumped nearly fourfold from the year-ago period to $3.3 billion. The result got a boost from the recovery in crude prices and higher output from the year-ago period.

ExxonMobil earning was up 18 percent from a year earlier just under $4 billion for the quarter, as the ongoing rebound in crude prices bolstered its business producing oil and gas. But the maintenance weighed on earnings in its division that refines and sells fuels like gasoline, while weaker profit margins in its chemicals segment also dragged on the bottom line.

Royal Dutch Shell reported Q2 earnings of $4.7 billion, up 30 percent from $3.6 billion in the year-ago period. Shell saw higher prices offset lower output to lift its earnings in second quarter, announcing the restart of a multi-billion dollar share buyback program as its confidence in oil and gas sector recovery grows.

Total’s production in Q2 surpassed a previous record and rose to 2.717 million barrels per day of oil equivalent, up 8.7 percent from the same period last year. Its adjusted net profits surged 44 percent to $3.6 billion supported by higher oil prices and strong production growth. The French oil major said production growth in 2018 should be above 7 percent as it looks to benefit from the strong cash flow start-ups of Angola’s Kaombo, Italy’s Tempa Rossa, Australia’s Ichthys LNG and Nigeria’s Egina development.

Eni reported a surge in second-quarter 2018 earnings, lifted by the ramp-up of volumes from new major projects and stronger oil prices reporting a 66 percent jump in adjusted earnings for the quarter at €767 million.

The Italian major said its oil and gas production rose 5.2 percent on the year to 1.86 million boe/d in the quarter, fueled by the ramp-up of the giant Zohr gas field off Egypt and helped by new fields in Indonesia, Congo and Ghana. Higher production at the giant Kashagan project in Kazakhstan and the Val d’Agri fields in southern Italy also lifted its volumes.

FRANK UZUEGBUNAM