Chevron Q1 profit rises 36 per cent amidst supply disruptions

Chevron Corporation has reported a 36 per cent surge in first-quarter 2011 profit as crude prices rose on economic growth and supply disruptions to over $100 a barrel.

Chevron said its net income rose to $6.21 billion, or $3.09 a share, from $4.55 billion, or $2.27, a year earlier even as sales were up 25 per cent, to $60.3 billion.
 
Global demand for petroleum-based fuels was up 2.9 per cent in the first quarter, helped by growth in China, Brazil and India, according to the International Energy Agency.

Oil futures were up 20 per cent in New York at an average $94.60 a barrel, on civil unrest in North Africa and the Middle East that has cut supplies from the region.

Profit from the company's oil and natural gas business increased 27 per cent to $5.98 billion with higher commodity prices offsetting an output decline of less than 1 per cent. According to Chevron, it pumped the equivalent of 2.76 million barrels of crude during the period, which was down from 2.78 million a year earlier.

Chevron's refineries earned $622 million, more than three times the profit for the first quarter of 2010.

Chevron posted first-quarter earnings of $6.2 billion, though revenue of $58 billion fell short of $66 billion expected by analysts.

The Chevron results were in line with the earnings released by its "Big Oil" peers ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and BP, as rising oil prices and a better refinery margin environment boosted short-term profits.

According to Chevron, production was down worldwide to a net 2.76 million barrels a day in the first quarter 2011, from 2.78 million barrels a day in the 2010 first quarter, as production increased in Brazil, Nigeria, Thailand and Canada, but fell on normal field declines, "a 1% negative volume effect of higher prices on cost-recovery volumes and other contractual provisions as well as decreases due to weather- and maintenance-related downtime."