EXXONMOBIL, the world’s biggest publicly traded oil and gas operator, said yesterday its fourth-quarter 2008 net income fell 33% on a year earlier to £5.58billion as a sharp drop in oil prices affected results.
The company said its full-year earnings, excluding special items, were a record £31.37billion, up 8% on the year before.
Revenue for the year was almost £341billion against £289billion in 2007.
Chairman Rex Tillerson said the fourth-quarter fall in income was attributable to weaker crude oil prices, higher operating costs, lower chemical volume, and the impact of US Gulf Coast hurricanes, although these were offset partly by higher downstream margins.
He added: “ExxonMobil’s financial strength continued to support its disciplined capital investment approach in the middle of a growing global economic slowdown.”
The company said its production for was 6% lower year-on-year at 3.92million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).
Meanwhile, Chevron, the No 2 US oil company after ExxonMobil, posted net income of £3.5billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, up from £3.48billion a year earlier.
It said net income for the year was £17.09billion compared with £13.35billion in 2007. Annual revenue was £195billion, compared with £157.79billion the year before.
The company also said worldwide production averaged 2.53million boepd during the year compared with 2.62million the previous year. It said the decline was primarily associated with the effect of damage to production infrastructure caused by last September’s hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Chief executive Dave O’Reilly said: “We enter 2009 with the financial strength to meet the challenges of a difficult economy and with a continued focus on cost management and capital stewardship.”
Australian minnow Roc Oil said yesterday it had lifted its UK North Sea output in the fourth quarter of last year thanks to improvements at the Enoch oil and gas field, however, production at Blane fell because of technical problems.
Roc, which holds small interests in both fields, said gross oil production at Enoch rose 54% in the fourth quarter to average 6,595 barrels per day (bpd) compared with the previous quarter. Gross gas production was also up 10% on the previous quarter to 2.1million cu ft per day.
Blane oil production fell 9% to 11,933bpd gross, compared with the previous quarter, which Roc said was the result of a natural decline.
