Quarterly Profits Down for Two Large U.S. Oil Companies, Up for Two U.K.-based Firms

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Written by John Egan for IIR News Intelligence (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

Weak demand growth and an oversupplied market lowered oil prices and cut into fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 profits for two large integrated supermajor oil companies--Exxon Mobil Corporation and Chevron Corporation. Shell plc, on the other hand, saw quarterly and full-year earnings rise while BP plc saw quarterly profits rise but full-year profits fall compared to year-earlier periods.

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Quarterly Profits Up but Full-Year Profits Down

As a group, fourth-quarter 2025 earnings according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for four of the world's top oil companies totaled about $14.9 billion, up about $2 billion over fourth-quarter profits in 2024 and 2023 earnings. But full-year profits fell to $66.1 billion, down sharply from full-year 2024 and 2023 results.

Initially, investors split over the results: stocks of the two U.S.-based firms rose the day earnings were announced while shares slumped for the two British-based firms the day they announced results.

Companies confronted a global oil market that was over-supplied for most of 2025, causing prices to fall and pressuring margins. Cash spot prices for the U.S. benchmark crude, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), fell about 16% in the fourth quarter and about 15% for the year.

Click on the image at right for a graph showing five years of prices for WTI.

The drop in prices for WTI was roughly comparable to price declines for Brent, the European benchmark.

Click on the image at right for a graph showing five years of prices for Brent.

"Big Oil" continued tightening their belts during the quarter and year, with all four companies reporting further gains in structural cost reductions. Several sold assets during the quarter or year. For some companies, cash outlays to investors again exceeded earnings, forcing some to eat into their cash horde or sell assets to meet the expectations of shareholders.

Results for each company are summarized below.

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil earned $6.5 billion for the just-completed quarter, down 15% from year-earlier quarterly earnings of $7.6 billion. Quarterly revenue slumped to $82.3 billion from $83.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

For full-year 2025, the Spring, Texas-based integrated supermajor saw net earnings fall 15%, to $28.8 billion from 2024's $33.7 billion. Year-over-year revenue fell to $332.3 billion in 2025 from $349.6 billion in 2024.

Click on the image at right to see four years of full-year earnings for the four integrated supermajors.

In a January 30 earnings call, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said lower quarterly results stemmed from various factors, including asset-impairment charges ($1.7 billion), restructuring charges ($64 million), weaker crude prices and chemical margins, lower production from assets that had been sold, higher depreciation, growth-related costs and lower interest income. These impacts were partially offset by asset sales ($720 million), tax issues ($288 million) advantaged volume growth, structural cost savings, higher industry refining margins and favorable timing effects.

Worldwide production, on an oil-equivalent basis, rose to just under 5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d) from 4.6 million BOE/d in the third quarter of last year.

Cash capital expenditures (capex) for the year increased to approximately $29 billion, up from about $25.6 billion in 2024. U.S. exploration & production (upstream) capex rose nearly $4 billion for 2025, to about $15.9 billion from roughly $11.3 billion in 2024, while non-U.S. capex declined slightly. Year-over-year capex spending fell for refining & marketing (downstream) and chemicals, but rose for specialty chemicals. For 2026, the company estimated future capex at $27 billion-$29 billion.

ExxonMobil said it achieved about $3 billion in structural cost reductions in 2025, bringing its total savings since 2019 to about $15.1 billion. Exxon had set a goal of cutting structural costs by a cumulative $18 billion by 2030, compared to 2019.

Chevron

In announcing earnings January 30, this Houston-based supermajor said fourth-quarter 2025 profits fell about 14%, to $2.8 billion from $3.2 billion in the year-earlier quarter. Quarterly revenue declined on a year-over-year basis, to $46.9 billion from $52.2 billion. On a full-year basis, Chevron's earnings fell 32%, to $12.4 billion on revenue of $189 billion in 2025 versus profits of $17.6 billion on sales of $202.8 billion in 2024.

The company said lower crude oil prices, lower affiliate earnings and unfavorable foreign currency effects depressed its fourth-quarter and full-year results. But these were partly offset by higher margins on refined product sales, higher sales volumes and lower severance charges.

Chevron said it replaced 158% of its production in 2025, aided by the Hess acquisition, completed last July, higher production in the Permian Basin and the start-up of major deepwater projects in the Gulf. The Hess integration produced $1 billion in synergies, Chevron said.

On a worldwide basis, upstream production rose to a record of slightly over 4 million BOE/d in the just-completed quarter from approximately 3.4 million BOE/d in the October-December 2024 period.

The earnings release also noted that Chevron "continued to advance new energy opportunities in power, lithium and hydrogen and achieved structural cost reductions of $1.5 billion in 2025."

Chevron is the only major U.S. integrated oil company still operating in Venezuela. It might expand its operations and investments in that country after the Trump administration's early-January capture of President Nicolás Maduro, but it has made no commitments as yet. Oil companies want Venezuela to make significant changes to its legal system before they will consider increasing activities there. For more on that, see January 13, 2026, article - Venezuela, Permitting Reform Top U.S. Oil & Gas Priority List.

Regarding Venezuela, the company said, "Chevron continues to engage with the U.S. and Venezuelan governments to advance shared energy goals." Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth added: "We have been a part of Venezuela's past for more than a century. We remain committed to its present. And we stand ready to help it build a better future while strengthening U.S. energy and regional security."

Excluding capex spending by Chevron's affiliated entities, the company's full-year capex rose slightly, to $17.3 billion in 2025 compared to $16.4 billion in 2024. U.S. upstream spending was up slightly, to $9.8 billion from $8.5 billion in 2024, but international spending rose 25%, to approximately $6.4 billion from $5.1 billion in 2024.

Shell

London-based Shell broke with ExxonMobil and Chevron when it reported higher quarterly and full-year earnings February 5. The integrated supermajor earned $4.1 billion in the just-ended quarter, up from $900 million in the comparable year-earlier quarter. Quarterly revenue was down slightly, to $66.7 billion, compared with $66.8 billion a year earlier.

On an annual basis, Shell earnings rose to $17.8 billion on $273.7 billion of sales in 2025 compared to full-year profits of $16.1 billion on $289 billion of revenue in 2024. Shell also said it trimmed its fourth-quarter and full-year capital expenditures compared to 2024.

Shell said it cut structural costs about $2 billion in 2025, bringing to $5.1 billion the total structural cost reductions it has achieved since 2022. Fourth-quarter production of hydrocarbons, on a barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d) basis, increased slightly compared to third-quarter production. However, compared to full-year 2024, production for 2025 fell about 1%, to about 2.8 million BOE/d.

Refinery throughput also fell about 9% on a year-over-year basis while margins improved 31%, the company said. The price it received for its Brent crude oil fell 14% during 2025, to about $69 per barrel, while the price it received for gas at Henry Hub, Louisiana, shot up 59%, to approximately $3.50 per million British thermal units (MMBtu).

During 2025, Shell sold assets in Nigeria, Canada and Singapore while strengthening its Integrated Gas and Upstream portfolios with the acquisition of Pavilion Energy, an Asia-based global trader of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and an increase in equity ownership of deepwater assets.

Commenting on Shell's results, Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan said, "2025 was a year of accelerated momentum, with strong operational and financial performance across Shell. We generated free cash flow of $26 billion, made significant progress in focusing our portfolio and reached $5 billion of cost savings since 2022, with more to come."

BP

Fourth-quarter profit rose for British-based oil giant BP plc, but full-year results declined. For the quarter, BP earned about $1.5 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the October-December 2024 period, But for the full year, profits slid to approximately $7.5 billion from $8.9 billion in 2024. The company reported earnings February 10.

Interim Chief Executive Carol Howle accentuated the company's "strong underlying financial results, strong operational performance and meaningful strategic progress" during 2025. "We have made progress against our four primary targets--growing cash flow and returns, reducing costs, and strengthening the balance sheet--but know there is more work to be done, and we are clear on the urgency to deliver." She underscored the company's plan to remain focused on capital discipline.

The company cut its planned capital expenditures (capex) to the lower end of the guidance range and suspended its share buyback program. It plans to use the extra cash to pay down debt. BP also is "high-grading" its portfolio of properties, which includes plans to sell about $20 billion in peripheral assets. That includes the recent announcement that it was selling its 65% ownership in lubricants business Castrol for about $6 billion. During the year, BP also closed its U.S. onshore wind business and non-controlling interests in U.S. midstream assets.

Operationally, BP reported production was broadly flat with 2024, and that reserves replacement ratio increased to about 90%. Seven major projects started up during 2025, and its refinery business had a record full-year availability.

BP also touted its Bumerangue discovery in Brazil, where initial estimates indicate around 8 billion barrels of liquids in place. And the company will get a permanent chief executive in April when Meg O'Neill comes on board.

But for now, Howle sought to reassure investors, saying the company is "accelerating its progress to build a simpler, stronger and more valuable BP for the future."

Key Takeaways

• Third-quarter earnings fell for ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP compared to year-earlier quarterly results while earnings for Shell rose.
• Price realizations for crude oil and natural gas were generally down, though gas price realizations were higher for BP.
• On a BOE basis, production rose for several companies.

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About IIR News Intelligence
IIR News Intelligence is a trusted source of news for the industrial process and energy markets, powered by Industrial Info Resources' Global Market Intelligence (GMI).

About Industrial Info Resources
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) 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 250,000 current and future projects worth $30.2 Trillion (USD).