The oil industry has been facing calls from investors and the White House to put last year’s record earnings from sky high energy prices into more drilling, acquisitions, or to reduce prices for consumers.
Chevron on Friday is expected to report profits for 2022 doubled to $37.2 billion, according to estimates by Refinitiv. It has budgeted $17 billion on new oil and gas projects this year, up $2 billion.
It and Exxon Mobil are poised to post record annual profits for 2022 of nearly $100 billion combined, analysts forecast.
Those unprecedented earnings led analysts at Citi on Wednesday to ask if one of the two might buy BP , Shell or TotalEnergies .
The U.S. oil majors’ valuations are about 40% above European rivals, Citi said. BP’s market value is about $108 billion, compared to Chevron’s $346 billion and Exxon’s $466 billion.
Chevron’s disclosure of the share buyback and a 6% increase in its quarterly shareholder dividend signaled…
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