The two giant American oil companies, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, exceeded analysts’ expectations for their quarterly profits, Friday, as the significant rise in refining margins led to increased profits from fuel production activities - which usually have lower profit margins - to match the profits of the extraction and production sectors (upstream).
The Iran war, along with the war between Russia and Ukraine, has led to turmoil in global energy markets and rising gasoline and diesel prices.
Threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and recent attacks on oil refineries in the Gulf region and Russia caused the disruption of part of the fuel refining capacity. This boosted the profit margins of Exxon and Chevron at a time when their refineries in the United States were operating at almost full capacity.
As for Exxon, the largest oil producer in the United States by market value, its profits from the refining sector have now exceeded its profits from the extraction and production sectors, for the first time in at least six years.
Chevron also recorded the highest level of profits in the refining and distribution sector during the same period.
Exxon shares rose by 2 percent in pre-market trading, while Chevron shares rose by 1 percent during Friday trading.
Neil Hansen, Exxon's chief financial officer, says that the company continues to invest in its refineries - including the Baytown complex in Texas -; With the aim of increasing fuel production, it also relied on its commercial team to direct supplies to areas where they were needed most globally.
Hansen added: “It is important to realize that rising fuel prices are putting real pressure on households and businesses... The most feasible response we can provide as a company is to use all the tools at our disposal to increase supplies.”
Chevron stated - in statements prepared ahead of the earnings conference - that the production of oil derivatives in the United States will increase by an additional 100,000 barrels per day thanks to investments in refineries, without specifying a timetable.
High fuel prices have become a point of political tension ahead of the US midterm elections scheduled for next Tuesday, with diesel and gasoline costs causing increased voter dissatisfaction.
The oil sector has so far succeeded in avoiding some of the tougher measures discussed in Washington, including the possibility of a ban on diesel exports; It is an option that US President Donald Trump had considered in September, before announcing in early October that he would not impose it.
In an interview with Reuters, Emer Bonner, Chevron's chief financial officer, said that the company has opportunities to enhance efficiency in its refineries located in the Gulf of Mexico region, and it can also increase the production capacity of the Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi by 7 percent by the end of the decade.
For its part, “Exxon” announced adjusted earnings per share of $4.23 in the third quarter, while “Chevron” recorded adjusted earnings per share of $5.28.
Philip Youngwirth, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, noted in a research note, according to Reuters, that Chevron’s profits - whether from the exploration and production sector or from the refining and marketing sector - were all higher than expectations.
These results are in line with the performance of the two European oil companies, Shell and Total Energy, which also announced, on Thursday, profits that exceeded expectations, supported by record profit margins in the refining sector.
The two giant US oil companies are using surplus cash to pay down debt and strengthen their balance sheets, rather than increasing dividends or buying back more shares.
As for the British oil company BP, which recorded record quarterly net profits on Friday, it said that it would use these funds to reduce its financial obligations, including early repayment of part of its remaining obligations (worth $5 billion after deducting taxes) related to the oil spill incident from the “Deepwater Horizon” platform in 2010, which resulted in the deaths of 11 people.
In a related context, Hansen explained that Exxon reduced its debt by $8 billion during the third quarter, stressing that the company intends to continue its approach based on maintaining sustainable and growing dividends in the long term.
Chevron reduced its net debt by about $14 billion compared to its levels at the end of 2025.
“We think in terms of decades, not quarters,” Bonner said. “We need a strong balance sheet, whether in periods of high or low prices.”
She indicated that the spot price of standard Brent crude fluctuated during the third quarter between its lowest level at $68 per barrel and its highest level at $132. This highlights the state of volatility witnessed in energy markets.
For its part, Exxon announced that it will buy back shares worth $20 billion in 2027, the same level recorded in the previous two years.
The price of the cryptocurrency “Bitcoin” fell below $77,000 per unit for the first time in more than a month, which exacerbated the wave of selling in the wake of the cryptocurrency trading company Binance Holdings revealing a record hack.
Bloomberg News Agency reported that this incident raised widespread concern in the cryptocurrency market, and raised questions about the security of customer assets, even on the largest digital assets trading platform in the world.
The largest and most famous cryptocurrency in the world declined by 3.1 percent in Friday trading, reaching $76.3 thousand per unit.
Other cryptocurrencies also declined, including some that were affected by this security breach. The Binance platform's BNP currency fell by about 5 percent during the past 24 hours, reaching about $700 per unit.
The hack - during which the attackers were able to seize more than $6 billion - is the largest theft in the history of cryptocurrencies, and deals a new blow to a sector that has spent years trying to get rid of its reputation associated with hacks, fraud, and the collapse of trading platforms.
This incident also put the Binance platform's security systems under the microscope, raising questions about how a platform of this size, which includes assets worth more than $135 billion, was exposed to a hack of this massive scale.
Today, the Binance platform announced the allocation of $6.34 billion of the company’s funds to cover losses following the incident.
Jeff Kuo, chief analyst at Via BTC, said that the cryptocurrency market is already tending towards decline, and for this reason sales operations spread very quickly throughout the market, adding that “Binance” is able to absorb these losses.
Bitcoin and other digital currencies have been under pressure throughout this week, with macroeconomic factors affecting the market in general. Bitcoin continued to fluctuate around the level of $80,000 per unit during most days of the week.
