Exxon Mobil profit climbs 38%, misses Street

Exxon Mobil on Thursday said its first-quarter profit climbed 38% on rising prices, while production rose 4.5% on contributions from mega-projects such as its Qatar liquid natural gas complex.

The Irving, Texas oil giant said it benefitted from higher crude oil prices and stronger chemical margins, while its downstream business remained

Exxon Mobil’s earnings for the three months ended March 30 increased to $6.3 billion, or $1.33 a share, from $4.55 billion, or 92 cents a share, in the year-ago period. The earnings include a charge of 4 cents a share related to health care legislation.

“Our results reflect higher crude oil realizations and stronger chemical margins while the downstream industry margins remained weak,” Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The company said its revenue climbed to $90.3 billion, from $64 billion.

Wall Street analysts expected earnings of $1.39 a share and revenue of $96.2 billion, according to a survey by FactSet Research.

Capital and exploration spending rose 19% to $6.9 billion.

Upstream earnings rose $2.3 billion to $5.8 billion. Downstream earnings fell $1.1 billion to $37 million, on lower refining margins.

Benchmark U.S. oil prices averaged nearly $79 a barrel in the first quarter, about $3 above the quarter before and sharply higher than the $43 average of the first quarter of 2009.

Exxon’s profit in the quarter was $6.3 billion, or $1.33 per share, compared with $4.55 billion, or 92 cents per share, a year earlier.

Exxon also said recently enacted U.S. healthcare legislation hurt earnings by $200 million, or about 4 cents per share.

Wall Street analysts had expected Exxon to report a profit of $1.41 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Jason Gammel, oil analyst at Macquarie Research, characterized Exxon’s first-quarter profit as a “pretty big miss,” and attributed the bulk of the shortfall to the Exxon’s accrual for the healthcare legislation.