Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) reported on Friday a third-quarter net income that beat analyst estimates by a wide margin, saying that the earnings reflected an improvement from the previous two quarters.
Chevron booked a net income of US$1.283 billion for the third quarter, or US$0.68 per diluted share, compared to analyst expectations compiled by Zacks Investment Research for earnings of US$0.39 per share.
Total revenues dropped to US$30.14 billion for the third quarter, from US$34.32 billion in the year-ago period. Still, the sales figure slightly beat the Zacks-compiled average analyst estimate of US$30.06 billion.
In comparison, for the second quarter this year, Chevron had booked a net loss of US$1.47 billion thanks to the continued oil price depression. This was down from a profit of US$571 million for the second quarter of 2015.
For the third quarter, Chevron's earnings in the upstream business jumped to US$454 million, up from US$59 million for the third quarter last year. U.S. upstream operations booked a loss of US$212 million, which was smaller than the loss of US$603 million for the same period in 2015. Chevron attributed the smaller U.S. upstream losses to lower operating and depreciation expenses, and lower tax items.
International upstream earnings rose to US$666 million, compared to US$662 million for the third quarter of 2015, on the back of lower expenses and higher natural gas sales.
In the downstream business, Chevron's total earnings dropped to US$1.065 billion from US$2.211 billion.
The company's cash flow from operations in the first nine months of 2016 fell to US$9.0 billion from US$14.9 billion for the same period last year.
Chevron said on Wednesday that it was increasing its quarterly dividend to US$1.08 per share, up from US$1.07 per share for the second quarter, boasting that it has increased its annual dividend payment for 29 years in a row.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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