Chevron Reports Increased Earnings in 2012 (USA)

Chevron Corporation today reported earnings of $7.2 billion ($3.70 per share – diluted) for the fourth quarter 2012, compared with $5.1 billion ($2.58 per share – diluted) in the 2011 fourth quarter. Results in the 2012 period included a gain of $1.4 billion from an upstream asset exchange.

Full-year 2012 earnings were $26.2 billion ($13.32 per share – diluted), down 3 percent from $26.9 billion ($13.44 per share – diluted) in 2011.

Sales and other operating revenues in the fourth quarter 2012 were $56 billion, down from $58 billion in the year-ago period, mainly due to lower crude oil volumes.

“Chevron delivered another very strong year in 2012,” said Chairman and CEO John Watson. “Our upstream portfolio continues to produce excellent results. We’ve now led the industry in earnings per barrel for over three years. Our downstream businesses also delivered highly competitive earnings per barrel.”

“Strong cash flows allowed us to invest aggressively in our major capital projects and to acquire several important, new resource opportunities. We also raised the dividend on our common shares for the 25th consecutive year and continued our share repurchase program, both of which demonstrate our commitment to providing near-term, top-tier returns to our shareholders.”

Watson continued, “We made significant progress on our Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects in Australia in the past year. At the same time, we announced six additional natural gas discoveries offshore Australia, and completed an asset exchange that increased our interests in Carnarvon Basin fields. These results support future expansion opportunities for these two projects.”

“We also expanded our global exploration resource acreage in 2012,” Watson noted, “including entries into five new countries, the addition of significant new acreage in the United States, and the recently announced acquisition of a 50 percent operated interest in a western Canada LNG project.”

Watson commented that the company added approximately 1.07 billion barrels of net oil-equivalent proved reserves in 2012. These additions, which are subject to final reviews, equate to 112 percent of net oil-equivalent production for the year. The largest additions were for the Gorgon Project, as a result of development drilling and additional reservoir data. Also significant were additions for fields in the United States, Asia and offshore eastern Canada. The company will provide additional details relating to 2012 reserve additions in its Annual Report on Form 10-K scheduled for filing with the SEC on February 22.

“In the downstream business, we completed a multiyear plan to streamline the asset portfolio. We continued to focus our investments toward higher growth and higher margin products,” Watson added. In 2012, the company’s 50 percent-owned affiliate, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC, announced the beginning of commercial production at a petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia, and the initiation of front-end engineering and design for several petrochemical projects on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Significant progress was also made on the construction of new capacity to make premium base oil at the company’s Pascagoula, Mississippi, refinery and additional capacity at the company’s existing additives plant in Singapore.

The company purchased $1.25 billion of its common stock in fourth quarter 2012 under its share repurchase program. Repurchases for the full year totaled $5 billion. At year end, balances of cash, cash equivalents, time deposits and marketable securities totaled $21.9 billion, an increase of $1.8 billion from the end of 2011. Total debt at December 31, 2012 stood at $12.2 billion, an increase of $2.0 billion from a year earlier.

UPSTREAM

Worldwide net oil-equivalent production was 2.67 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter 2012, up from 2.64 million barrels per day in the 2011 fourth quarter. Production increases from project ramp-ups in Nigeria, the United States and Thailand, higher cost recovery volumes in Bangladesh and new volumes from the recently-acquired Delaware Basin properties were partially offset by normal field declines and the continued shut-in of the Frade Field in Brazil.

U.S. upstream earnings of $1.36 billion in the fourth quarter 2012 were down $242 million from a year earlier. Lower crude oil and natural gas realizations were partially offset by higher crude oil production.

The company’s average sales price per barrel of crude oil and natural gas liquids was $91 in the fourth quarter 2012, down from $101 a year ago. The average sales price of natural gas was $3.22 per thousand cubic feet, compared with $3.62 in last year’s fourth quarter.

Net oil-equivalent production of 674,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter 2012 increased 13,000 barrels per day, or 2 percent, from a year earlier. The increase in production was primarily due to further ramp-up of projects in the Gulf of Mexico and the recently-acquired Delaware Basin properties, partially offset by an absence of volumes associated with Cook Inlet, Alaska, assets sold in 2011. The net liquids component of oil-equivalent production increased 3 percent in the 2012 fourth quarter to 462,000 barrels per day, while net natural gas production decreased 1 percent to 1.27 billion cubic feet per day.

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Press Release, February 1, 2013