Written by Sheila Dang and Sharma
Houston-senior oil executives in oil this week did not mention a great possibility to improve over a long period of refinery profits after Chevron, Exxon and Shell have informed the fourth quarter profits, which were strongly exposed by the recession in the margins to produce fuel.
Increased global refining capacity in 2024, along with increasing growth on demand, has damaged refining margins.
Chevron’s shares decreased by 4 % after they reported a loss in her honorary work for the first time since 2020, causing the American oil product No. 2 to be absent from the estimation of Wall Street.
“This trend that we saw from the margins that soften until 2024 is something you can expect to see, and extend to 2025,” said Mike Worth, CEO CEO, in an interview.
He said in a conference on the post -profit conference in response to a question from an improvement analyst: “The fourth quarter was weak, there is no doubt about that.”
“I will not call it a perfect storm, but it was a quarter of gold in one direction and was negative.”
Worth said that Chevron will focus on what it could control for the sake of apostasy, including the scheduled maintenance of a lighter weight of refineries during the next year.
Exxon Mobil shares decreased by 2.5 % after they recorded 75 % in diving in the modified profits of refining compared to the third quarter. The broader energy sector index fell 2.8 % on Friday.
Catherine Mikels, Exxon Financial Manager, said in an interview that refining work is still under pressure from the additional fuel supplies that enter the market after the opening of new refineries in different countries around the world.
“This is really what we watch as we look forward to 2025,” she said.
The No. 1 oil product in the United States still beats profit estimates with a high production of the Pramean basin, Top Us Oil Hvese, and Guyana, the latest oil connection point.
The UK -based Shell said on Thursday that although she had no plans to get out of refining work, she did not plan to expand either.
The company’s profits in the fourth quarter decreased almost half of the previous year to $ 3.66 billion, in part due to the weakest refining margins.
Shell sold the refining and chemicals center in Singapore last year and plans to close another factory in Wesseling, Germany.
To the independent refineries
While the high oil and gas production helped oil specialties from the impact of low refining profits, fresh play has achieved great success as the demand for fuel in the United States and China, the largest oil consumers.
Philips 66 profits in the fourth quarter decreased to $ 8 million from $ 1.26 billion in the quarter. Valero profit fell 73 % in the fourth quarter.
Lynn Regez, CEO of Valero on Thursday, said the limited additions that exceed 2025 are to help two American hairdressers this year, and the limited capacity additions will help after 2025 to support long -term margins refining.
Investors were also concerned about the threats of US President Donald Trump to impose fees on raw imports from Canada and Mexico on February 1, which could raise the costs of the US exporters.
The Great French company, Totalerre against the fourth -quarter results on February 5 and BP oil products reports on February 11.
BP has warned that a decrease in the refining of margins and the impact of the transformation and maintenance activity will lead to a decrease of $ 300 million in profit profit.
(She participated in the reports of Sheila Dang in Houston; edited by Richard Waldens, Simon Web and Margarita Choi)