Lower Production Drives Chevron's 3Q Net 33% Lower

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) revealed a 33% contraction in third-quarter earnings on Friday as the oil heavyweight missed Wall Street’s expectations amid shrinking production.

Shares of the blue-chip energy company slid almost 1% in reaction to the numbers.

Chevron said it earned $5.25 billion, or $2.69 a share, last quarter, compared with a profit of $7.83 billion, or $3.92 a share, a year earlier.

Analysts had been calling for stronger EPS of $2.83.

Revenue dropped 9.9% to $58 billion, badly missing the Street’s view of $63.9 billion.

“This quarter's earnings were solid, but off from their near record level of a year ago," CEO John Watson said in a statement. "Crude oil prices were down and we had a heavy period of planned oil field maintenance which temporarily reduced oil and gas production in several locations.”

Chevron’s third quarter was hurt by declining production as the company’s average U.S. refinery crude oil input fell by 118,000 barrels per day to 779,000. U.S. net oil-equivalent production per day slid by 25,000 barrels per day, or 4%, to 637,000.

Chevron said its U.S. upstream earnings declined by $386 million year-over-year to $1.12 billion. Domestic downstream earnings dropped to $456 million from $704 million the year before.

Shares of the San Ramon, Calif.-based company lost 0.67% to $110.71 in premarket action. The stock has gained almost 5% so far this year.

Earlier this week rival ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) disclosed a 7.4% decline in third-quarter earnings due in part to declining production.