Energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM), the world’s largest company by market value, reported a net profit of over $10 billion for the third consecutive quarter, helped by a sustained increase in oil prices, which offset the decrease in production, the biggest in the last three years, Bloomberg writes. The profit in the third quarter of this year rose to $10.33 billion or $2.13/share, compared with $7.35 billion or $1.44/share for the same period a year earlier, according to the company’s report. Earnings per share were in line with expectations of the 19 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Robust profit growth was supported by strong sales, by 32% to $125 billion.
Over the competition
Production of oil and natural gas fell by 3.8% to the equivalent of 4.28 million barrels of oil per day, the biggest decline since 2008. Decrease in production was however lower than the two figure percent reported recently by rivals such as British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp.
“These guys continue to push oil to the surface and to sell it as it would go out of style”, said Douglas Ober, who manages $1.6 billion of Adam Express Co. and Petroleum & Resources Corp. in Baltimore. Previous time when Exxon reported quarterly profits of over $10 billion for three consecutive times was in 2008 when the price of Brent crude oil reached a record quotation of $147.50/barrel, and the company has managed an annual profit of 45.22 billion dollars.
The reaction of investors after publication of the results
In the period since the beginning of the year, Exxon shares rose by 11%, managing the best annual performance since 2007. After announcing the results, Exxon shares rose more than 1% to$ 81.52, a level at which the company capitalization is $395.5 billion. Exxon shares are a “buying” recommendation from 14 analysts, “keep it” from 11 and “sale” of 2 analysts. Oil production fell by 7.1% to 2.25 billion barrels per day, due to decline in Africa, USA and Europe, but the gas production increased in Europe and the USA.