Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE: MPC) reported on Tuesday higher-than-expected earnings and revenues for the first quarter despite lower refining margins and profits compared to the same period last year.
Marathon Petroleum's first-quarter net income came in at $937 million, or $2.58 per diluted share, one of the biggest U.S. refiners said today.
The earnings per share were slightly higher than the analyst consensus estimate of $2.54 compiled by The Wall Street Journal.
Total revenues of $33.2 billion were lower than the $35.1 billion revenues for the first quarter of 2023 but topped the consensus estimate of $32.01 billion.
Marathon Petroleum's refining and marketing (R&M) margin was $18.99 per barrel for the first quarter of 2024, down from $26.15 per barrel for the first quarter of 2023. Crude capacity utilization was approximately 82%, resulting in a total throughput of 2.7 million barrels per day for the first quarter of 2024, as planned maintenance and turnaround activity hit the highest level in company history and as global refining margins eased from the highs seen in 2022 and 2023.
In the first quarter of 2024, Marathon Petroleum returned about $2.5 billion of capital to shareholders through $2.2 billion of share repurchases and $299 million of dividends.
"In the first quarter, our team safely and successfully completed the largest planned maintenance quarter in MPC history, including at four of our largest refineries," said CEO Michael J. Hennigan.
"This positions us to meet the high demand of summer travel season."
Marathon Petroleum is the latest U.S. refiner to report Q1 earnings, with reduced refining margins, as widely expected.
Last week, Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) reported lower-than-forecast profits for the first quarter as refining margins halved from the year-ago period and refinery maintenance affected product sales. Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO), for its part, reported an adjusted net income more than halved compared to a year earlier, but earnings nevertheless beat the analyst consensus estimate amid tight crude supplies at the start of this year.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More