ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) beat Wall Street estimates with the second-highest earnings for the second quarter in a decade as the acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources fueled a record quarterly production and the highest oil production since the Exxon and Mobil merger.
Exxon said on Friday that its second-quarter 2024 earnings came in at $9.2 billion, or $2.14 per share assuming dilution.
That was higher than the analyst estimate of $2.02 compiled by The Wall Street Journal.
The $60-billion Pioneer acquisition, which Exxon completed during the second quarter, contributed $500 million to earnings in the first two months post-closing with record production, and integration and synergy benefits are exceeding expectations, Exxon said.
The transaction handed Exxon access to over 1.4 million net acres in the Delaware and Midland basins in the Permian.
"We delivered our second-highest 2Q earnings of the past decade as we continue to improve the fundamental earnings power of the company," chairman and chief executive officer Darren Woods commented.
"We achieved record quarterly production from our low-cost-of-supply Permian and Guyana assets, with the highest oil production since the Exxon and Mobil merger."
Year-to-date to June earnings rose by $1.5 billion due to advantaged assets volume growth from record Guyana, heritage Permian, and Pioneer production.
YTD net production jumped by 9% to 4.1 million oil-equivalent barrels per day, or by 352,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day, Exxon said.
In the upstream, higher crude realizations and structural cost savings offset lower natural gas prices, higher expenses, and lower base volumes due to divestments of non-strategic assets and government-mandated curtailments.
In the downstream, Exxon reported a drop in earnings compared to last year - as all majors have done so far - due to "significantly lower industry refining margins which normalized from historically high prior year levels as demand growth was more than met by capacity additions."
Exxon's stock was up by 1% in pre-market trade on Friday, while the shares of Chevron were falling after an earnings miss from the other U.S. supermajor.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More