By Sheila Dang
HOUSTON (Reuters) -Chevron on Friday reported first-quarter earnings that met Wall Street estimates, but said it would spend less on share repurchases in the current quarter, reflecting the shaky economic outlook faced by Big Oil.
The company’s share repurchases this year could be between $11.5 billion and $13 billion, said Chevron Chief Financial Officer Eimear Bonner, which would be in the lower end of the company’s guidance of $10 billion to $20 billion.
Shares of Chevron fell 2% in pre-market trading on Friday.
Chevron and other oil producers have been contending with falling crude prices since April 2, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that are expected to reduce global economic growth.
An unexpected decision by OPEC+ to increase output has further pressured oil prices, which hit a four-year low last month.
The lower crude prices have raised questions about whether producers will meet their goals for paying dividends and repurchasing shares – a cornerstone of Big Oil’s strategy to woo investors – or cut capital expenditure budgets.
Chevron said it paid $3 billion in dividends and repurchased $3.9 billion in shares during the quarter.
In the second quarter, the company said it expects to repurchase between $2 billion and $3.5 billion in shares. If rolled forward, that would mean Chevron could land between $11.5 billion and $13 billion in repurchases for 2025, Bonner said in an interview.
“We’re still buying back a significant amount of our shares annually, on top of a dividend that’s growing faster than our peers,” she said.
The second-largest U.S. oil producer posted adjusted earnings of $3.8 billion during the three months ended March 31, or $2.18 per share, matching analyst estimates, according to LSEG data.
Chevron’s global oil production totaled 3.35 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), flat from the same period last year. Earnings from oil and gas production were $3.76 billion, down from $5.24 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Scheduled maintenance in oil and gas production during the current quarter will lower output by about 105,000 boepd, the company said.
Refining profit improved from the previous quarter, when Chevron’s downstream operations reported the first loss in four years.
The company completed an expansion at the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan in January and grew production from the Permian basin, the top U.S. oilfield, by 12% year-over-year. Those gains were offset by loss of production from asset sales.
Chevron also started production at the Ballymore project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in April.
