USA: Refining Losses Drive Down Chevron Profits
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Monday, 30 January 2012 |
Chevron Corporation has reported a fall in quarterly earnings as refining losses in the United States drove its downstream division as a whole into loss-making territory. Profit dropped to $5.1bn, down from $5.3bn in the same period last year.
Chevron had previously warned that refinery margins were slipping and that the downstream arm for the business would roughly break even during the fourth quarter. However, downstream losses for the company came in at $204m, reversing a profit of $704m during the same period of 2010.
Pat Yarrington (pictured), Chevron's Vice President and CFO, said that falling fuel margins were the most significant source of weakness: as crude prices rose, margins declined by $390m from the fourth quarter of 2010 to 2011.
For the year as a whole, however, Chevron reported a record net profit of $27 billion, and also managed to add 1.67bn barrels of oil equivalent to its reserves during the year. The company has a net cash position of $10 billion.
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