Exxon, Chevron earnings, buybacks show cheap gas isn’t coming back

If you want a quick outlook on whether U.S. gas prices are likely to return to pre-Covid levels, a good place to start is earnings reports from Chevron and Exxon in the last week.

The outlook: Don’t count on it. In their fourth-quarter earnings reports, both companies showed clear signs of Big Oil’s renewed focus on managing costs, widening profit margins as oil prices stayed relatively high even after coming down considerably from last year’s highs, and confidence that they will be able to keep passing the rewards back to shareholders.

On Jan. 25, Chevron announced a $75 billion share buyback, which will allow it to use excess cash flow to cut the number of shares by up to as much as 20% — over multiple years and contingent on shares also used for employee options programs and M&A rather than just earnings per share increase. Chevron also raised its dividend to about 3.4%, double that of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. On Jan. 31, Exxon announced it had spent $15.2 billion to acquire stock in 2022 – up from $155 million a year earlier, and authorized another $35 billion this year and next.

The moves are the latest page in the industry’s post-2020 playbook: To satisfy investors who pushed energy stocks down more than 40% in a rising stock market between 2014 and 2019, oil companies slowed down drilling overinvestment that had caused cash-flow losses estimated as high as $280 billion. With the conserved cash, they raised dividends and boosted stock buybacks – moves that helped oil stocks double in the year after the 2020 election, as U.S. gasoline prices rose by more than half.

Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors, which advises mutual funds on energy investing, said Chevron and Exxon are in position to increase the dividend, increase production, and buy back stock. “They are doing what mature companies do – generate a lot of cash and return it to shareholders,” he said.

The industry’s reallocation of money to shareholders from new drilling comes as political leaders, including President Joe Biden, criticize oil companies for not restraining the price of gasoline as crude oil rose from $53 when Biden took office in 2021 to $77.50 now.  Exxon’s fourth-quarter profit margin of almost 14% of revenue compares to 11% a year ago.

“My message to the American energy companies is this: You should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends,” Biden said in October. “Not now. Not while a war is raging. You should be using these record-breaking profits to increase production and refining.”

The White House attacked both companies again this week after the buyback announcements.

In the market, and at the oil companies headquarters, it seems the opinions issued from the White House aren’t much of a factor in setting financial…