Exxon, Chevron report record profits in Q2

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largest energy companies in the United States, said Friday that profits jumped in the second quarter as they continued to reap the benefits of soaring oil and gas prices.

Exxon reported income of $17.9 billion for the three months through June, more than three times what it earned a year ago. Its revenue jumped to $115.6 billion, from $67.7 billion a year ago. Chevron’s performance was similar, with profit more than tripling to $11.6 billion as sales rose to $65 billion, from $36 billion a year ago.

Coming after oil prices nearly doubled from a year ago, the bumper results were expected, but Exxon and Chevron still beat analysts’ predictions for profits in the quarter. On Thursday Shell, the biggest oil company in Europe, also reported a record quarterly profit.

The energy industry’s windfall has followed a spike in crude oil, natural gas and gasoline prices this year, resulting mostly from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and efforts to punish Moscow by cutting off its petroleum sales to the rest of the world. A global economy rebounding from the coronavirus pandemic and hesitation by oil producers to quickly ramp up production have also pushed crude oil prices sharply higher.

In the three months through June, the U.S. crude oil benchmark averaged about $109 a barrel, or 64% more than in the same period a year earlier, data from Bloomberg shows. On Friday, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude was about $99 a barrel.

Exxon on Friday said that its refining profits, earnings that come from processing crude oil into gasoline and other fuels, surged to $5.3 billion, from a loss of $865 million a year ago. At Chevron, refining profits were $3.5 billion in the second quarter, up from $839 million the year before.

The profit bonanza for the oil producers has not been lost on stock investors this year. The energy sector is one of two groups in the S&P 500, out of 11 in total, to post gains in 2022 — the other is utilities.

Collectively, the energy sector is up 32.5% for the year through Thursday, while the broader S&P 500 is down 15.1%.