Exxon Mobil Corp. saw its stock value drop by more than 3% after it shared its first-quarter results. These results didn’t match what analysts were expecting in terms of profit and production.
In the first quarter, the company made a profit of $8.22 billion, or $2.06 for each share. This is down from $11.43 billion, or $2.79 per share, in the same period last year.
The drop happened mainly because refining margins in the industry went down and there was a big 32% decrease in how much money they made from selling natural gas.
However, even with these problems, Exxon earned $83.08 billion in revenue. This was more than what experts were expecting, which was $79.69 billion according to FactSet.
Analysts like Justin Jenkins from Raymond James recognized that Exxon is still doing well overall. They pointed out that the company is making progress in important areas like the Guyana fields and its holdings in the West Texas Permian.
Costs Go Up Due to Global Tensions
The company had to pay more money overall, reaching $70.71 billion, which was 1.4% higher. Some reasons for this were a 3.5% increase in buying crude oil and related products and a 13.4% increase in depreciation and depletion.
Exxon’s CFO, Kathryn Mikells, talked about problems in the Middle East and Russia, calling them “pretty troubling” and saying they might affect the business.
But even with these problems, Exxon’s work hasn’t stopped, and they’re making sure their staff stays safe.
Production and Sales
Exxon’s upstream production dropped by 1.2%, which wasn’t as much as people expected. However, they did produce 2.5% more crude oil, natural gas liquids, bitumen, and synthetic oil.
Their natural gas production for sale went down by 8.2%. So far this year, Exxon’s stock has gone up by 21.4%, doing better than the Energy Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund and the S&P 500.
This shows how well Exxon is managing, even though they didn’t make as much money as expected and have to deal with global issues and changes in the market.
