Chevron’s Third-Quarter Profit Nearly Triples to $9.9 Billion on Record US Refinery Runs

Chevron said on October 30 that its third-quarter 2026 earnings rose to $9.9 billion, or $5.06 per diluted share, from $3.5 billion ($1.82 per share) a year earlier, as war-driven fuel margins lifted its refining business to a record performance in the United States. Adjusted earnings came to $10.4 billion, or $5.28 per share, ahead of a Wall Street consensus of about $4.89 per share cited by OilPrice.com.

The gap between reported and adjusted profit reflected a $160 million legal reserve booked in international upstream, a $110 million impairment and $24 million of pension settlement costs, according to the company’s results release filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Currency movements reduced earnings by a further $143 million. Profit was below the $12.1 billion Chevron earned in the second quarter, but return on capital employed reached 17.7%, compared with 7.6% in the third quarter of 2025.

Refining did the heavy lifting

Downstream earnings jumped to $4.9 billion from $1.1 billion a year earlier, with the US refining and marketing business alone contributing $3.6 billion. Chevron’s US refineries processed a record 1.09 million barrels of crude per day, with utilisation near 98%. US refined product sales were flat at about 1.30 million barrels per day, while international product sales fell 9%, which the company attributed to supply disruptions in the Middle East.

Upstream earnings rose to $5.7 billion from $3.3 billion, helped by a sharp rise in crude prices: Brent averaged $97 a barrel in the quarter versus $69 a year earlier. The pattern matches what other majors reported this week. ExxonMobil posted $15.4 billion in third-quarter profit, and BP’s earnings rose to $4.7 billion as refining margins widened.

Output slips abroad, holds above 2 million boe/d at home

Worldwide net production averaged 3.98 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), down from 4.09 million a year earlier. US output was broadly stable at 2.04 million boe/d, the fifth straight quarter above 2 million, anchored by the Permian Basin. International production fell to 1.94 million boe/d from 2.05 million. Chevron said the decline reflected lower entitlement volumes under production-sharing contracts as prices rose, along with the impact of the Middle East conflict, partly offset by record output in Australia and the inclusion of one month of production from Venezuela.

On Venezuela, the company said it had secured improved commercial terms and expanded acreage, and that its joint ventures there plan to invest $7 billion over five years, with the potential to more than double production. The change in how Chevron accounts for its Venezuelan operations is what brought that month of output into the quarter’s figures, according to the release. Other developments listed included an offshore discovery in Angola, an exploration agreement in Libya, agreements expected to cut its Bakken midstream costs by about 50%, and the completed sale of its downstream business in Cambodia.

Cash flow, debt and payouts

Cash flow from operations rose to $16.0 billion from $9.4 billion a year earlier, though it was down from $22.6 billion in the second quarter. Free cash flow reached $12.0 billion, and adjusted free cash flow $14.2 billion, a figure that included a $1 billion loan repayment from Tengizchevroil, its Kazakhstan joint venture, and asset sale proceeds. Capital expenditure fell to $4.0 billion from $4.4 billion, mainly because of lower spending in the Permian.

Chevron used the cash to cut total debt by $3.5 billion and net debt by $7.8 billion, bringing its net debt ratio down to 9.6% at the end of September from 15.6% at the end of 2025. It returned $6.0 billion to shareholders in the quarter — $3.5 billion in dividends and $2.5 billion in share buybacks — and declared a quarterly dividend of $1.78 per share, payable on December 10 to shareholders of record on November 18.

“We’re reinvesting to bring more energy to a supply-constrained market,” chairman and chief executive Mike Wirth said in the release.

Sources

• Chevron Corporation, third-quarter 2026 results, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, October 30, 2026 — sec.gov — primary source for earnings, special items, segment results, production, refinery throughput, cash flow, debt, dividend and CEO quote.
• OilPrice.com, “Chevron Profits Nearly Triple to $9.9 Billion”, October 30, 2026 — oilprice.com — independent report used for the analyst consensus estimate and cross-checking headline figures.

Illustrative image. Photo: Jim Evans, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source