By Sheila Dang
HOUSTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil beat Wall Street targets in fourth-quarter earnings reported on Friday, with higher oil production in profitable Permian Basin and Guyana assets helping to boost the No. 1 U.S. oil producer’s results.
Adjusted earnings for the October to December quarter were $1.71 per share, beating a consensus estimate of $1.68 per share from analyst data compiled by LSEG.
Annual upstream production reached its highest point in more than 40 years at 4.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, the company said.
Oil producer profits were under pressure throughout 2025 as an oversupplied crude market pushed Brent oil futures down 19% last year. Exxon’s full-year 2025 adjusted profit declined by a narrower margin of 10%, however, as the company focused on cutting costs.
Still, it was Exxon’s slimmest annual profit since 2021.
“We’re capturing more value from every barrel and molecule we produce and building growth platforms at scale – creating a long runway of profitable growth through 2030 and beyond,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said in a statement.
Shares were down 0.6% in morning trading. The stock is up about 30% over the past year, taking the company to its highest-ever market cap.
ON TRACK FOR HIGHER 2026 OIL PRODUCTION
Adjusted upstream earnings in the fourth quarter were $4.4 billion, down from $5.7 billion the previous quarter.
Exxon is on track to grow full-year 2026 production to 4.9 million boepd, which will include about 1.8 million boepd from the Permian Basin, the top U.S. oilfield, the company said in prepared remarks.
In the fourth quarter, production reached nearly 5 million boepd.
During an earnings call with analysts, Woods said the company had the technological capabilities needed to extract Venezuela’s high-cost heavy crude, but made no new commitments to evaluate reentering the country. U.S. President Donald Trump has urged American companies to spend billions in the country to revive the oil industry after the U.S. captured and removed President Nicolas Maduro.
Woods said earlier on Friday that Exxon has recovered “a substantial amount” of the money it was owed after its Venezuelan assets were nationalized in 2007.
“Today, the balance is not material with respect to the whole of the corporation with what we’re owed there,” Woods said in an interview with CNBC.
He said Exxon remained interested to send a technical team to evaluate Venezuela, while speaking during the earnings call.
STRONGER REFINING HELPS LIFT RESULTS
The oil major recorded a jump in both quarterly and annual refining profit, driven by stronger industry refining margins, cost savings and record refinery throughput.
Adjusted downstream profit rose 60% from the third quarter to $2.9 billion.
The chemicals division, however, reported an adjusted loss of $11 million compared with profit of $515 million in the third quarter, due to weaker margins, writedowns and higher seasonal spending, Exxon said.
“Notably, this is the first negative result for (Exxon’s) chemicals product division since 4Q19, and highlights the severity of the chemicals downturn the industry is facing,” said Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, in a research note.
Exxon paid $17.2 billion in dividends and repurchased $20 billion worth of shares last year. The company said it plans to buy back the same amount through 2026.
Exxon’s capital expenditures totaled $29 billion last year. The oil producer has said capex this year will be between $27 billion and $29 billion.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Houston; Editing by Nathan Crooks, Tom Hogue and Nick Zieminski)
