MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil, the largest US oil group that was recently stripped of its prized triple A rating, saw its profits plunge 63 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, but managed to top Wall Street forecasts as it slashed capital expenditure and flogged assets, said The Financial Times.
The Texas-based company reported profits of USD1.8bn or 43 cents per share, compared with USD4.9bn or USD1.17 per share in the year ago period. That was well ahead of analyst forecasts of 23 cents per share earnings.
Sales fell 28 per cent to USD48.7bn, but nonetheless glided past analyst forecasts of USD44.2bn. The oil group bumped its dividend up 5.8 per cent to 73 cents per share. Its shares have climbed 1.1 per cent to USD89.00 in pre-market trading.
Hunkering down to ride out this period of low oil prices, Exxon said it cut first quarter capital expenditure 33 per cent year-on-year to USD5.1bn, and raised USD177m through asset sales.
In response to the precipitous decline in crude prices since mid-2014 that has weighed on profits of energy companies, ExxonMobil said in February that it was lowering its annual capital expenditures by 25 per cent to USD23.2bn in 2016, from a year ago — its slimmest budget since 2007.
"The organization continues to respond effectively to challenging industry conditions, capturing enhancements to operational performance and creating margin uplift despite low prices," said Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive.
Earlier this week ratings agency Standard & Poor’s stripped ExxonMobil of its triple-A rating, citing growing debt at the fourth-largest publicly traded company and analysts’ view that it would have to boost capital spending to maintain production. ExxonMobil’s shares have advanced 13 per cent so far this year.
As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil is shipping a cargo of crude produced from its deepwater Julia field in the Gulf of Mexico to its refinery in Rotterdam, Netherlands, marking the first export of offshore oil to leave a US port since a ban was lifted.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
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