BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 3. ExxonMobil's earnings from the upstream sector in 4Q2023 reached $4.1 billion, Trend reports.
According to the company's latest results, this reflects a $2 billion decrease from the third quarter same year.
Identified items played a significant role in this decline, reducing earnings by $2.1 billion. The primary factor behind this reduction was the impairment of the idled Santa Ynez Unit assets in California, driven by regulatory challenges affecting the restart of production and distribution, ExxonMobil explains.
Thus, adjusting for these identified items, earnings excluding them amounted to $6.3 billion, showing an increase of $127 million.
This positive shift can be attributed to higher volumes and an improved mix, particularly driven by growth in Guyana and Permian, along with stronger gas realizations, the company noted. These factors more than compensated for lower crude realizations, unfavorable tax impacts, and year-end inventory effects.
For the full year, earnings amounted to $21.3 billion, marking a huge drop of $15.2 billion year-on-year. Identified items had an impact, reducing earnings by $2.3 billion, in contrast to the unfavorable $2.9 billion impact in the previous year.
Excluding these identified items, earnings experienced a decline of $15.8 billion, driven by lower realizations in liquids and natural gas, along with adverse effects of $2.4 billion from unsettled derivatives marked to market. This was primarily due to the absence of favorable impacts seen in the prior year. On a positive note, improved portfolio mix contributed nearly $1 billion, with growth from Guyana and Permian more than compensating for divestments, ExxonMobil noted.