Oil Firms Post Mixed Results; Texaco Profits Drop 77%

Chevron Corp. on Tuesday said that its first-quarter net income jumped 51%, while Phillips Petroleum Co. reported a 36.3% increase.

But Mobil Corp. reported a 7% decline in net income in the first quarter, mainly reflecting lower petrochemical earnings, while Texaco Inc.’s net income plummeted 77.4% and Shell Oil Co. posted a 44% decline.

Nearly all the companies said they benefitted from higher prices of crude oil and natural gas during the quarter. In many cases, the declines in net income were due to special accounting features, while actual proceeds from oil and gas rose.

Fourth-ranked Chevron credited its strong earnings performance to a worldwide increase in the production of oil and gas. Net income for the quarter jumped to $473 million from $313 million a year earlier.

Chevron’s first-quarter revenue rose 20.8% to $9.3 billion from $7.7 billion.

“We were able to produce natural gas at record levels, reflecting in part the development of Gulf of Mexico properties purchased from Tenneco in 1988,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Ken Derr.

The outlook for the second quarter remains unclear because of continued volatility in crude prices, Derr said. Chevron, based in San Francisco, also is working on completing several sales of assets that could yield significant net gains this year.

Mobil, the nation’s second-largest oil company, said its earnings slipped to $400 million from $429 million in the first quarter of 1989.

New York-based Mobil said its chemical division had sharply lower earnings, reflecting a worldwide drop in petrochemical prices from record levels a year earlier. Earnings from petroleum operations rose sharply, on the other hand, mainly due to higher crude and gas prices.

First-quarter revenue rose 6.4% to $14.9 billion from $14 billion.

Texaco, which ranks third behind Exxon Corp. and Mobil, said its net income fell to $328 million from $1.45 billion in the first quarter of 1989. However, results for the year-earlier quarter included a one-time net gain of $1.19 billion resulting mainly from the sale of Texaco Canada Inc.

Excluding the restructuring gain, Texaco’s first-quarter net income rose 23.8% to $328 million from $265 million.

“Texaco’s steady performance in the first quarter showed strong (exploration and production) earnings reflecting the higher crude oil and natural gas prices prevailing during the period,” James W. Kinnear, Texaco’s president and chief executive, said. “However, there has been a weakening in these prices in the second quarter.”

First-quarter revenue declined 4.7% to $9.16 billion from $9.61 billion. Texaco is based in White Plains, N.Y.

Phillips, ranked 11th and based in Bartlesville, Okla., said its net income jumped to $259 million from $190 million. Earnings in the first quarter of this year include a net gain of $148 million from an accounting change and other one-time features.

Revenue rose 0.1% to $3.13 billion from $3.10 billion.

Shell, the sixth-largest U.S. oil company, with headquarters in Houston, is wholly owned by the Royal Dutch-Shell Group of Cos., a British-Dutch enterprise.

Shell said the drop in its first-quarter earnings--to $203 million from $362 million--was largely due to a $70-million insurance settlement gained in the year-earlier quarter.

Revenue increased 11.5% to $5.8 billion from $5.2 billion.