ExxonMobil reported estimated third quarter earnings of $6.2bn, compared with $4bn a year earlier. Cash flow from operations and asset sales was $12.6bn, including proceeds associated with asset sales of $1.5bn. Capital and exploration expenditures were $6.6bn, up 10 percent from the prior year.
Oil-equivalent production was 3.8 million barrels per day, down two percent from the third quarter of 2017. Excluding entitlement effects and divestments, liquids production increased six percent, as growth in North America more than offset decline and higher downtime. Natural gas volumes decreased four percent, excluding entitlement effects and divestments, largely due to a continuing near-term shift in U.S. unconventional development from dry gas to liquids.
In the third quarter, ExxonMobil started a new 1.5 million-metric-tonne-per-year ethane cracker at its integrated Baytown, Texas chemical and refining complex. The new cracker, part of ExxonMobil’s Growing the Gulf initiative, provides ethylene feedstock to new performance polyethylene lines at the company’s Mont Belvieu plastics plant, which began production in the fall of 2017. The Mont Belvieu plant is one of the largest polyethylene plants in the world, with manufacturing capacity of about 1.3 million metric tonnes per year.
ExxonMobil has also signed a cooperation framework agreement with the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government in China to advance discussions concerning the proposed construction of a chemical complex in the Huizhou Dayawan Petrochemical Industrial Park. The new facility would help meet expected demand growth for chemical products in China. The multibillion-dollar project, which remains subject to a final investment decision, would include a 1.2 million-metric-tonne-per-year ethylene flexible feed steam cracker, two performance polyethylene lines and two differentiated performance polypropylene lines. Startup is planned for 2023.
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6th November 2018
