Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. oil company, also said that its capital and exploration expenditures of $26.7 billion for the first nine months of the year represented a record, as the company attempted to take advantage of the nearly 50 percent rise in oil prices from a year ago.
Profits so far have been strong across the oil patch, but it may be difficult to sustain the improvement in the next quarter over last year. Oil prices have eased since the spring, when turmoil in Libya took 1.3 million barrels of crude off world markets.
Now that Libya’s rebels have taken power, exports from that country are beginning to flow again. Prices for oil and natural gas in the coming months will depend on the strength of the world economy, which remains uncertain.
Exxon Mobil reported that its net income rose to $10.33 billion in the three months through September, from $7.35 billion a year earlier, helped by the increase in oil prices.
“We continue pursuing new opportunities to meet growing energy demand while supporting economic growth, including job creation,” said Rex. W. Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s chairman, in a statement.
Net income at Shell, the biggest oil company in Europe, rose to $6.98 billion in the three months through September from $3.46 billion in the same period a year earlier.
“Shell did a lot better than expected, but Exxon came roughly in line,” said Fadel Gheit, senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer Co. “Shell had higher than expected production and better than expected refining and chemical results. Exxon had lower than expected production, and lower refining and chemical results.”
Shell’s chief executive, Peter Voser, said in a statement, “We are making good progress against our targets, to deliver a more competitive performance.
Mr. Voser said Shell was moving ahead with its plan to focus on its most valuable assets and invest in new projects to ensure continued production. Shell has completed $6.2 billion of assets sales so far this year, $1.8 billion of that in the third quarter, when the company sold the Stanlow refinery in Britain for $1.2 billion. Shell had planned to raise $5 billion from asset sales this year.
New project starts in Qatar and Canada helped production levels, Shell said. The projects are part of more than 20 new operations planned until 2014 as part of a $100 billion investment program.
The earnings for Shell beat forecasts of an average $6.61 billion of a group of analysts polled by Reuters.
On Tuesday, BP reported earnings that also beat analyst expectations and said it expected production to grow.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4429263bbf374a673717d1c592f3ed6a
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