The country's two largest oil companies disclosed enormous quarterly earnings, with analysts noting that the bulk of their gains came not from extracting more crude but from processing it into fuel at unusually wide margins. Chevron's third-quarter result came in at $9.9 billion, nearly three times the $3.5 billion it reported for the same quarter the previous year. ExxonMobil's quarterly haul reached $15.4 billion, a figure that more than doubled its year-earlier result of $7.5 billion and came close to the record it set in 2022.
Refining operations drove both companies' results. Chevron's refining segment alone surged more than 300 percent, growing from $1.1 billion to $4.9 billion. At ExxonMobil, the fuels and refining unit carried the overall quarter, with that segment's adjusted earnings rising sharply from the prior period even as crude production earnings fell on weaker oil prices. That divergence between oil prices and pump prices explains why consumers have felt little relief even after crude costs pulled back from spring peaks.
The root cause, analysts say, is a severe tightening of global refining capacity. A GasBuddy petroleum analyst noted that refining capacity has been squeezed from several directions at once, including China processing smaller volumes because of constrained access through the Strait of Hormuz, and Ukrainian drone strikes removing Russian refining facilities from service. During ExxonMobil's earnings call, the company's chairman and chief executive stated that approximately half of Russia's refining capacity is now offline, leaving the country a net importer of finished fuel.
Those conditions have kept prices elevated at stations throughout Colorado Springs and across the nation. AAA data put the national average for regular gasoline at around $4.20 per gallon, up from $3.03 at the same point a year ago, with diesel running above $6. Moody's Analytics calculated that the typical American household has spent roughly $1,184 more on gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel since the conflict began.
Both companies' chief executives addressed consumer hardship while defending their firms' performance. ExxonMobil's chairman and chief executive acknowledged the strain, saying "we recognize the impact high prices have on people's lives and economic growth," and credited production investment and a 2023 refinery expansion in Beaumont, Texas, with keeping prices from climbing even higher. Chevron's chairman and chief executive characterized the market as still fragile, saying "the system is under stress," and stated in the company's earnings release that Chevron is "reinvesting to bring more energy to a supply-constrained market."
Much of the windfall is being returned to shareholders. ExxonMobil disclosed $20 billion in planned share repurchases for 2027 and extended its run of consecutive annual dividend increases to 44 years. Stock ownership in the United States is sharply skewed, with Federal Reserve figures showing the top tenth of households by wealth controlling roughly 88 percent of corporate equity and mutual fund assets, compared with about 1 percent held by the bottom half of the population.
The GasBuddy analyst cautioned that today's record results "could turn into significant losses in the next year" if geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia were to ease. Whether any easing of refining constraints eventually reaches drivers at Colorado Springs pumps remains an open question.