By Sheila Dang and Shariq Khan
Houston – The major oil leaders have seen little prospect of short -term improvement in the profits of the refinery this week after Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell all reported the fourth quarter revenues that have been hardly affected by a slowdown margins to produce fuel.
An increase in global refining capacity in 2024, combined with the growth of spraying demand, has harmed refining rooms.
Chevron’s shares have decreased by 4% after declaring a loss in its refining activity for the first time since 2020, which made Miss Wall Street ‘US 2 oil producer.
“This trend that we have seen from the margins to soften until 2024 is something that you can expect to continue to see, to expand in 2025,” said CEO of Chevron, Mike Wirth, in an interview .
“It was a small second quarter, there was no doubt,” he said at a post-benefit call conference in response to an analyst’s question on the slowdown in refining.
“I’m not going to call it a perfect storm, but it was a quarter in which everything went in a way and it was negative.”
Wirth said Chevron would focus on what he can control in order to bounce back, including lighter programmed maintenance for refineries in the next year.
Exxon Mobil’s shares fell 2.5% after declaring a 75% dive of adjusted refining profits compared to the third quarter. The wider index in the energy sector of the S&P 500 fell 2.8% on Friday.
The refining company remains under pressure from the additional fuel supply entering the market after new refineries have opened in different countries of the world, said Kathryn Mikells, Exxon financial director, in an interview.
“This is really what we look at while we look in 2025,” she said.
American oil producer N ° 1 has always beaten the estimates of profits with higher production from the Permian basin, the US high oil field and Guyana, the last oil hotspot.
Shell, based in the United Kingdom, said Thursday that even if he did not intend to leave the refining activity, he had not planned to develop either.
The profits from the fourth quarter of the company almost halved from the previous year to $ 3.66 billion, partly due to lower refining margins.
Shell sold its refining and chemical center in Singapore last year and plans to close another Wesseling factory in Germany.
Struck with independent refiners
While the production of higher oil and gas has helped oil majors from the impact of lower refining benefits, pure play refiners took a blow because the demand for fuel fogged in the United States and in China, the two largest oil consumers.
The benefit of the fourth quarter of Phillips 66 fell to $ 8 million, compared to $ 1.26 billion in the quarter of the previous year. Valero’s refining profit dropped 73% in the fourth quarter.
