Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) reported on Friday its biggest quarterly profit since 2013 for the third quarter and its highest free cash flow on record, as oil and gas prices rallied and demand rebounded.
Chevron booked earnings of $6.1 billion for the third quarter of 2021, compared with a loss of $207 million for the same quarter last year.
Adjusted earnings jumped to $5.7 billion, or $2.96 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2021, up from adjusted earnings of $340 million, or $0.18 per share, for Q3 2020.
The adjusted earnings per share of $2.96 this past quarter easily beat market expectations of $2.20 adjusted EPS.
Sales and other operating revenues nearly doubled to $43 billion, compared to $24 billion in the year-ago period, while Chevron's worldwide net oil-equivalent production rose to 3.03 million barrels per day in the third quarter of 2021, up by 7 percent from a year ago.
In its U.S. upstream operations, Chevron earned $1.96 billion in Q3 2021, compared with $116 million a year earlier, primarily due to higher crude oil prices and sales volumes. Chevron's average sales price per barrel of crude oil and natural gas liquids was $58 in third quarter 2021, up from $31 a year earlier. The average sales price of natural gas was $3.25 per thousand cubic feet in third quarter 2021, up from $0.89 in last year's third quarter.
"Third quarter earnings were the highest since first quarter 2013 largely due to improved market conditions, strong operational performance and a lower cost structure," Chevron's chairman and chief executive officer Mike Wirth said in a statement.
"Our free cash flow during the quarter was the best ever reported by the company," Wirth added. "We paid dividends of $2.6 billion, reduced debt by $5.6 billion, and repurchased $625 million of shares during the quarter."
Following the results release, Chevron's shares were up 1.75 percent in pre-market trade.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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