Released May 05, 2025 | SUGAR LAND
en
Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Crude oil prices peaked a few days before Donald Trump began his second term as president, and they drifted steadily downward throughout the first quarter, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) falling from about $78 per barrel on January 20 approximately $71.50 on March 31. Brent prices also fell throughout the quarter. Prices continued to weaken at the start of the second quarter, with WTI falling below $60 per barrel; Brent was about $3 more per barrel.
The reasons for the first-quarter price dip are varied, but in the face of continued strong global demand for oil, many analysts have pointed to the global economic uncertainty created by U.S. President Donald Trump, who entered office vowing to impose tariffs on nearly all imported goods, a promise he fulfilled, then paused, at the beginning of April, after the end of the first quarter.
But the president did not pause his 25% tariff on imported steel, a critical ingredient for oil and gas drilling. That levy was announced in February and went into effect in mid-March, near the end of the first quarter. The effect of steel tariffs is expected to become more evident in the second quarter, unless they are scaled back or voided altogether. He also announced a 10% "universal" tariff on all goods imported into the U.S. Many countries announced countervailing tariffs in response to Trump's tariff moves.
The U.S. economy contracted by 0.3% on an annualized basis in the just-completed period, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a branch of the U.S. Commerce Department. This was a sharp contrast to positive economic growth for most of the Joe Biden presidency. The BEA said the first-quarter economic contraction was caused by a surge in purchases of imported goods, as consumers and businesses raced to buy goods in advance of tariffs that had long been promised by the president. Purchases of imported goods are subtracted from the calculation of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Consumer sentiment soured throughout the first quarter, as shown in consumer surveys fielded by The Conference Board (New York, New York) and the University of Michigan. (Ann Arbor, Michigan). Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the U.S. economy, and increased consumer pessimism typically leads to lower levels of spending. Analysts have said consumer pessimism and economic uncertainty could cut demand for oil, leading to a supply glut.
Lower oil prices, rising economic uncertainties and growing pessimism among consumers lowered first-quarter financial results from four large integrated oil supermajors: Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Spring, Texas), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (Houston, Texas), Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England) and BP (NYSE:BP) (London, England).
Results for companies are summarized below.
ExxonMobil
First-quarter earnings fell about 6% or $507 million, to $7.7 billion from about $8.2 billion in the comparable year-earlier period. Revenue rose slightly, to $81 billion from $80.4 billion. The company reported first-quarter results May 2.
Click on the image at right to see four years of first-quarter earnings for four large integrated supermajor oil companies.
ExxonMobil said it cut structural costs $600 million during the just-completed period, bringing to $12.7 billion the amount of cumulative structural cost savings since 2019, more, it said, than all cost savings reported by other international oil companies combined. By 2030, structural costs will be $18 billion below what they were in 2019, the company pledged.
Production from ExxonMobil's U.S. exploration and production (Upstream) segment rose 77% in the first quarter, to about 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboe/d). That helped push up worldwide production 20%, to approximately 4.6 MMboe/d. Upstream operations propelled overall corporate earnings, accounting for $6.8 billion of the company's $7.7 billion in profit.
Upstream capital expenditures (capex) rose to $5 billion from $4.1 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
"In this uncertain market, our shareholders can be confident in knowing that we're built for this," said Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO). "The work we've done to transform our company over the past eight years positions us to excel in any environment."
Since 2019, he continued, "the strategic choices we made to reduce costs, grow advantaged volumes, and optimize our operations have strengthened quarterly earnings power by about $4 billion at current prices and margins. This year, we're starting up 10 advantaged projects that are expected to generate more than $3 billion of earnings in 2026 at constant prices and margins.
"Continuously leveraging our competitive advantage is enabling the company to excel in the current market environment and deliver on our plans through 2030 and far into the future," Woods concluded.
Chevron
Chevron's first-quarter profit fell about 36% to $3.5 billion from $5.5 billion a year ago. The company blamed lower crude oil price realizations and weaker margins in its refining unit. Production was essentially flat. Capex was down slightly, to $3.9 billion from $4.1 billion in the year-earlier period.
The supermajor told investors May 2 that falling oil prices would force it to trim its share repurchases in the second quarter, lowering buybacks to between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, from $3.9 billion in the just-completed quarter. The company said its full-year outlook of $10 billion to $20 billion in buybacks remains intact.
"We're comfortable with where we are right now," Eimear Bonner, the company's chief financial officer (CFO), told The New York Times in an interview. "We've navigated cycles before. We know what to do."
Bonner told The Times that Chevron was experiencing a "limited direct impact" from tariffs. The company has been working to mitigate the effects by buying supplies such as steel locally, Bonner said.
Chevron faces a late-May deadline to wind down activity in Venezuela after Trump took steps to reverse a Biden-era policy that allowed more oil to be produced in the country. The new rules are already having an effect. The company has been unable to load oil onto ships to be exported because of changes to its license, Bonner said.
"We're just continuing to engage with the administration on the topic," the CFO added.
The company also is waiting for an arbitrator to rule on a dispute over its planned acquisition of Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) (New York, New York) involving Hess' stake in a project in Guyana.
BP
Despite a February meeting with investors to unveil a new strategy, and an early-April warning that upstream production would dip, investors were displeased with BP's results, which were announced April 29. The company reported $982 million in profit on sales of about $48 billion, well below year-earlier results of approximately $2.5 billion on revenue of roughly $50 billion. The company's stock fell about 3% on the day earnings were released.
In announcing results, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss started by noting that the company is operating in a "volatile" time: "Following the introduction of global tariffs, and related government responses, there has been increased market volatility driven by rising concerns around the potential impact of a weaker economic outlook. Commodity prices have softened as the market anticipates a potential reduction in demand for oil and gas, driven by economic uncertainty."
He then turned to things BP can control, such as asset optimization, cost structure and asset sales. The BP chief said the company's upstream and downstream asset availability was very high in the first quarter (in the mid-90% for both) and that asset sales were progressing. The company is trying to sell about $20 billion of assets by yearend 2027 to reduce its debt, which now stands at about $27 billion. The strategic review of the Castrol lubricants business was still ongoing. Full-year capex is expected to decline about $500 million to roughly $14.5 billion, he said.
The company is making "good progress" to its three-year goal of reducing structural costs by $4 billion to $5 billion by yearend 2027, Auchincloss said April 29. He pledged to boost U.S. oil and gas production by more than 50% by 2030. BP also pared its quarterly stock repurchase program by $750 million, to about $1 billion.
Like Shell, another European-based supermajor, BP is moving away from renewable energy, which it has embraced in earlier years, because profits proved to be elusive compared to its oil and gas business. Walking back from renewables is one of several strategic pivots said to result from an activist investor, Elliott Asset Management, L.P. (West Palm Beach, Florida), accumulating about 5% of the company's stock.
Auchincloss predicted that brighter days were ahead: "As part of our plan to grow the upstream, we expect to start up 10 major projects between 2025 and 2027. I'm pleased to say that 2025 is off to a great start, with three of these projects now safely started up, delivering production and generating cash flow and returns."
Shell
First-quarter net earnings fell 34% to $4.8 billion from $7.4 billion for the year-earlier quarter. First-quarter revenue slipped 4%, to $69.2 billion from $72.5 billion.
Shell repurchased $2.2 billion of shares from shareholders in the first quarter, and announced it would ramp that up to $3.5 billion in the second quarter.
During the first quarter, Shell said it completed the previously announced acquisition of 100% of the shares in Pavilion Energy Pte. Ltd. (Pavilion Energy), headquartered in Singapore, which operates a global liquefied natural gas trading business with contracted supply volume of approximately 6.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).
Shell's production side had several announcements during the just-completed quarter:
The supermajor announced a $3.5 billion share buyback program for the second quarter, marking the 14th consecutive period in which it has repurchased $3 billion or more of its shares.
In releasing earnings May 2, Shell CEO Wael Sawan observed: "Shell delivered another solid set of results in the first quarter of 2025. We further strengthened our leading LNG business by completing the acquisition of Pavilion Energy, and high-graded our portfolio with the completion of the Nigeria onshore and the Singapore Energy and Chemicals Park divestments."
"We are now into the second quarter, and there are significant macro uncertainties," the CEO said. "But our approach remains the same: continue to deliver more value with less emissions, whilst rewarding our shareholders with consistency, delivering both competitive and resilient returns." The organization, Sawan said, will be "guided by our principles of performance, discipline and simplification."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
The reasons for the first-quarter price dip are varied, but in the face of continued strong global demand for oil, many analysts have pointed to the global economic uncertainty created by U.S. President Donald Trump, who entered office vowing to impose tariffs on nearly all imported goods, a promise he fulfilled, then paused, at the beginning of April, after the end of the first quarter.
But the president did not pause his 25% tariff on imported steel, a critical ingredient for oil and gas drilling. That levy was announced in February and went into effect in mid-March, near the end of the first quarter. The effect of steel tariffs is expected to become more evident in the second quarter, unless they are scaled back or voided altogether. He also announced a 10% "universal" tariff on all goods imported into the U.S. Many countries announced countervailing tariffs in response to Trump's tariff moves.
The U.S. economy contracted by 0.3% on an annualized basis in the just-completed period, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), a branch of the U.S. Commerce Department. This was a sharp contrast to positive economic growth for most of the Joe Biden presidency. The BEA said the first-quarter economic contraction was caused by a surge in purchases of imported goods, as consumers and businesses raced to buy goods in advance of tariffs that had long been promised by the president. Purchases of imported goods are subtracted from the calculation of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Consumer sentiment soured throughout the first quarter, as shown in consumer surveys fielded by The Conference Board (New York, New York) and the University of Michigan. (Ann Arbor, Michigan). Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the U.S. economy, and increased consumer pessimism typically leads to lower levels of spending. Analysts have said consumer pessimism and economic uncertainty could cut demand for oil, leading to a supply glut.
Lower oil prices, rising economic uncertainties and growing pessimism among consumers lowered first-quarter financial results from four large integrated oil supermajors: Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Spring, Texas), Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (Houston, Texas), Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England) and BP (NYSE:BP) (London, England).
Results for companies are summarized below.
ExxonMobil
First-quarter earnings fell about 6% or $507 million, to $7.7 billion from about $8.2 billion in the comparable year-earlier period. Revenue rose slightly, to $81 billion from $80.4 billion. The company reported first-quarter results May 2.
Click on the image at right to see four years of first-quarter earnings for four large integrated supermajor oil companies.ExxonMobil said it cut structural costs $600 million during the just-completed period, bringing to $12.7 billion the amount of cumulative structural cost savings since 2019, more, it said, than all cost savings reported by other international oil companies combined. By 2030, structural costs will be $18 billion below what they were in 2019, the company pledged.
Production from ExxonMobil's U.S. exploration and production (Upstream) segment rose 77% in the first quarter, to about 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboe/d). That helped push up worldwide production 20%, to approximately 4.6 MMboe/d. Upstream operations propelled overall corporate earnings, accounting for $6.8 billion of the company's $7.7 billion in profit.
Upstream capital expenditures (capex) rose to $5 billion from $4.1 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
"In this uncertain market, our shareholders can be confident in knowing that we're built for this," said Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO). "The work we've done to transform our company over the past eight years positions us to excel in any environment."
Since 2019, he continued, "the strategic choices we made to reduce costs, grow advantaged volumes, and optimize our operations have strengthened quarterly earnings power by about $4 billion at current prices and margins. This year, we're starting up 10 advantaged projects that are expected to generate more than $3 billion of earnings in 2026 at constant prices and margins.
"Continuously leveraging our competitive advantage is enabling the company to excel in the current market environment and deliver on our plans through 2030 and far into the future," Woods concluded.
Chevron
Chevron's first-quarter profit fell about 36% to $3.5 billion from $5.5 billion a year ago. The company blamed lower crude oil price realizations and weaker margins in its refining unit. Production was essentially flat. Capex was down slightly, to $3.9 billion from $4.1 billion in the year-earlier period.
The supermajor told investors May 2 that falling oil prices would force it to trim its share repurchases in the second quarter, lowering buybacks to between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, from $3.9 billion in the just-completed quarter. The company said its full-year outlook of $10 billion to $20 billion in buybacks remains intact.
"We're comfortable with where we are right now," Eimear Bonner, the company's chief financial officer (CFO), told The New York Times in an interview. "We've navigated cycles before. We know what to do."
Bonner told The Times that Chevron was experiencing a "limited direct impact" from tariffs. The company has been working to mitigate the effects by buying supplies such as steel locally, Bonner said.
Chevron faces a late-May deadline to wind down activity in Venezuela after Trump took steps to reverse a Biden-era policy that allowed more oil to be produced in the country. The new rules are already having an effect. The company has been unable to load oil onto ships to be exported because of changes to its license, Bonner said.
"We're just continuing to engage with the administration on the topic," the CFO added.
The company also is waiting for an arbitrator to rule on a dispute over its planned acquisition of Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) (New York, New York) involving Hess' stake in a project in Guyana.
BP
Despite a February meeting with investors to unveil a new strategy, and an early-April warning that upstream production would dip, investors were displeased with BP's results, which were announced April 29. The company reported $982 million in profit on sales of about $48 billion, well below year-earlier results of approximately $2.5 billion on revenue of roughly $50 billion. The company's stock fell about 3% on the day earnings were released.
In announcing results, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss started by noting that the company is operating in a "volatile" time: "Following the introduction of global tariffs, and related government responses, there has been increased market volatility driven by rising concerns around the potential impact of a weaker economic outlook. Commodity prices have softened as the market anticipates a potential reduction in demand for oil and gas, driven by economic uncertainty."
He then turned to things BP can control, such as asset optimization, cost structure and asset sales. The BP chief said the company's upstream and downstream asset availability was very high in the first quarter (in the mid-90% for both) and that asset sales were progressing. The company is trying to sell about $20 billion of assets by yearend 2027 to reduce its debt, which now stands at about $27 billion. The strategic review of the Castrol lubricants business was still ongoing. Full-year capex is expected to decline about $500 million to roughly $14.5 billion, he said.
The company is making "good progress" to its three-year goal of reducing structural costs by $4 billion to $5 billion by yearend 2027, Auchincloss said April 29. He pledged to boost U.S. oil and gas production by more than 50% by 2030. BP also pared its quarterly stock repurchase program by $750 million, to about $1 billion.
Like Shell, another European-based supermajor, BP is moving away from renewable energy, which it has embraced in earlier years, because profits proved to be elusive compared to its oil and gas business. Walking back from renewables is one of several strategic pivots said to result from an activist investor, Elliott Asset Management, L.P. (West Palm Beach, Florida), accumulating about 5% of the company's stock.
Auchincloss predicted that brighter days were ahead: "As part of our plan to grow the upstream, we expect to start up 10 major projects between 2025 and 2027. I'm pleased to say that 2025 is off to a great start, with three of these projects now safely started up, delivering production and generating cash flow and returns."
Shell
First-quarter net earnings fell 34% to $4.8 billion from $7.4 billion for the year-earlier quarter. First-quarter revenue slipped 4%, to $69.2 billion from $72.5 billion.
Shell repurchased $2.2 billion of shares from shareholders in the first quarter, and announced it would ramp that up to $3.5 billion in the second quarter.
During the first quarter, Shell said it completed the previously announced acquisition of 100% of the shares in Pavilion Energy Pte. Ltd. (Pavilion Energy), headquartered in Singapore, which operates a global liquefied natural gas trading business with contracted supply volume of approximately 6.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).
Shell's production side had several announcements during the just-completed quarter:
- It started production at the Whale floating production facility in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by the Trump administration as the Gulf of America, where Shell owns 60% and is the operator.
- It restarted production at the Penguins field in the U.K. North Sea with a modern floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.
- It made a final investment decision (FID) for Gato do Mato, a deep-water project off the coast of Brazil; and
- It completed the sale of its Nigerian oil business to Renaissance, announced a year earlier.
The supermajor announced a $3.5 billion share buyback program for the second quarter, marking the 14th consecutive period in which it has repurchased $3 billion or more of its shares.
In releasing earnings May 2, Shell CEO Wael Sawan observed: "Shell delivered another solid set of results in the first quarter of 2025. We further strengthened our leading LNG business by completing the acquisition of Pavilion Energy, and high-graded our portfolio with the completion of the Nigeria onshore and the Singapore Energy and Chemicals Park divestments."
"We are now into the second quarter, and there are significant macro uncertainties," the CEO said. "But our approach remains the same: continue to deliver more value with less emissions, whilst rewarding our shareholders with consistency, delivering both competitive and resilient returns." The organization, Sawan said, will be "guided by our principles of performance, discipline and simplification."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
