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Chevron profits fatten, but less than forecast
AFP
NEW YORK
Petroleumworld.com 07 29 06
US energy group Chevron said Friday its quarterly profits swelled 18 percent on rocketing crude oil prices, but the gain was not as strong as Wall Street had expected.
Chevron Corp. said its second-quarter net profit spiked to 4.4 billion dollars for the three months ended June 30, compared with 3.7 billion dollars a year ago.
That translated into earnings per share of 1.97 dollars, a much weaker number than Wall Street analysts' forecast of 2.21 dollars, according to a First Call consensus survey.
The company said it had to absorb charges of 300 million dollars during the quarter related to hurricanes last year which damaged many oil platforms and infrastructure across the Gulf of Mexico.
Chevron's revenues rose five billion dollars to 52 billion dollars for the quarter, marking an increase of 10 percent from a year ago.
"The earnings improvement in the second quarter was driven mainly by our upstream business outside the United States," Chevron chief executive Dave O'Reilly said in a statement.
However, O'Reilly said upstream refining production results were dented by the 300 million dollars in charges, which equated to a drag on earnings of 13 cents per share.
Aside from surging oil prices, Chevron said its earnings had also benefited from stronger prices for refined products such as gasoline, as well as revenues related to its 2005 acquisition of smaller rival Unocal.
Chevron is the latest US energy group to reports its earnings in what has largely been a booming season for the sector.
Rival ExxonMobil reported better-than-expected quarterly profits of 10.36 billion dollars on Thursday while ConocoPhillips revealed that its earnings jumped to 5.2 billion on Wednesday.
The bumper profits have revived angry criticism from Democratic lawmakers that the oil majors are benefiting from sky-high oil prices at the expense of hard-pressed consumers.
AFP 28 1331 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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