Chevron meets Wall Street profit estimates as refining recovers from previous quarter

HOUSTON, May 2 (Reuters) - Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab on Friday reported first-quarter earnings that met Wall Street estimates, as the company saw a turnaround in its refining business from a loss late last year.
The company's chief financial officer, Eimear Bonner, said Chevron's share repurchases this year could be between $11.5 billion and $13 billion, which would be within its guidance of $10 billion to $20 billion.
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The second-largest U.S. oil producer posted adjusted earnings of $3.8 billion during the three months ended March 31, or $2.18 per share, matching analyst estimates, according to LSEG data.
Refining and oil and gas production profits were down from a year ago, but the refining profit was a significant improvement from the previous quarter, when Chevron's downstream operations reported the first loss in four years.
Chevron and other oil producers have been contending with falling crude prices since April 2, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that are expected to reduce global economic growth.
The lower crude prices have raised questions about whether producers will meet their goals for paying dividends and repurchasing shares - a cornerstone of Big Oil's strategy to woo investors - or cut capital expenditure budgets.
Chevron said it paid $3 billion in dividends and repurchased $3.9 billion in shares during the quarter.
In the second quarter, the company said it expects to repurchase between $2 billion and $3.5 billion in shares. If rolled forward, that would mean Chevron could land between $11.5 billion and $13 billion in repurchases for 2025, Bonner said in an interview.
"We're still buying back a significant amount of our shares annually, on top of a dividend that's growing faster than our peers," she said.
Chevron's global oil production totaled 3.35 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, flat from the same period last year.
The company completed an expansion at the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan in January and grew production from the Permian basin, the top U.S. oilfield, by 12% year-over-year. Those gains were offset by loss of production from asset sales.
Chevron also started production at the Ballymore project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in April.
Operations at Tengiz have been in focus as Kazakhstan has repeatedly exceeded OPEC+ oil production quotas. Bonner said the company is operating unrestricted.
During the first quarter, Chevron was hit by a Trump administration order to wind down operations in Venezuela, which will impact the company's second-quarter shipments from the country.
Earnings from oil and gas production were $3.76 billion, down from $5.24 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Chevron's refining business earned $325 million, down from $783 million a year ago. But that represents a turnaround from the previous quarter when it reported a loss for the first time since 2020, as a post-pandemic surge in demand for fuel faded.

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