A rare miss sent ExxonMobil's stock falling, while Chevron's better print boosted the company's shares
ExxonMobil has a bigger global refining footprint than rival Chevron, which mattered on Friday.
The two largest energy companies in the U.S. cashed in as the worst oil-supply crunch in history roiled energy markets.
A rare profit and sales miss for ExxonMobil Holdings, however, sent the company's stock (XOM) about 2% lower on Friday, contrasting with gains of nearly 2% for Chevron $(CVX)$.
ExxonMobil has a bigger global refining footprint than rival Chevron, and much of the windfall from that side of the business was already priced in, said Arun Jayaram, an analyst with J.P. Morgan.
And while the stock may be getting dinged and the results were not quite as strong as hoped, ExxonMobil's profits continued to improve on "relentless" cost efficiencies, allowing the company to keep its "fortress" balance sheet, said Justin Jenkins, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
An earnings miss is rare for ExxonMobil, which last disappointed investors' expectations of adjusted per-share earnings more than two years ago, when it reported first-quarter results in April 2024.
Friday's drop was on track to be the worst post-earnings decline for ExxonMobil's stock since Jan. 31, 2025.
Still, ExxonMobil's profit more than doubled as compared with the second quarter of 2025, and Chevron's profit more than tripled.
Both companies used their windfall conservatively, however. They used some of it to reduce debt - by more than $8 billion at Chevron and by more than $7 billion at ExxonMobil.
On a call with analysts following results, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods spoke briefly about the near-standstill at the Strait of Hormuz. The "back-and-forth with respect to disruptions and attacks" creates more uncertainty and concern and less willingness to transit, he said.
"There is going to be a continued inhibition for movement, which, even once we get things cleared up, I think it will take some time for folks to gain some confidence there to continue to ramp things back up to a very high level," Woods said in a call with analysts following the results.
He added that while he couldn't predict when the strait would be open again or how a reopening might look like. "I just know that it's too critical to the overall health of the world economy and for people to meet their standards of living to have that disrupted for perpetuity," he said.
The U.S.-Israel war with Iran has severely disrupted oil flows from the Middle East, translating into higher prices for gasoline, diesel and other products and fanning concerns about global inflation. U.S. retail prices of gasoline and diesel averaged $4.11 a gallon and $5.35 a gallon, respectively, on Friday.
In peacetime, about a fifth of the world's supply of crude and crude products transited through Hormuz. Oil-exporting countries have found increasingly creative - and costly - alternative routes for their crude.
Chevron executives spoke of such alternatives to Hormuz, as the company has been exploring being one of the investors in the construction of a pipeline to connect Iraq's oil fields to the Syrian coast.
The workarounds have helped establish "some degree of flow through the strait," but they are short-term actions, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said. The pipeline Chevron has been interested in would be a medium-term move, he added.
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Exxon reported second-quarter adjusted earnings of $3.52 a share on sales of $104.7 billion. That compared with expectations of $3.56 a share on sales of $110 billion, according to FactSet.
The oil giant earned an adjusted $1.64 a share on revenue of $81.5 billion in the year-ago period.
Chevron earned an adjusted $6.06 a share on sales of $70 billion in the quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted EPS of $5.55 on sales of $62.7 billion.
In the second quarter of 2025, Chevron reported non-GAAP earnings of $1.77 a share on revenue of $44.8 billion.
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-Claudia Assis
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