Marathon gains in oil stocks after beating earnings forecasts on strong demand

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Marathon Petroleum’s Los Angeles refinery in Carson, California.

Bing Guan/Bloomberg

 

Marathon Petroleum
‘c

quarterly earnings and revenue jumped above expectations thanks to limited refining capacity and strong demand for petroleum products.

The oil refiner reported second-quarter earnings of $10.61 per share, compared with the consensus call for $8.92 per share among analysts tracked by FactSet. Revenue of $54.24 billion beat Wall Street estimates of $40.34 billion. In the same quarter a year earlier, the company earned 67 cents per share on revenue of $29.83 billion.

Shares (ticker: MPC ) rose 2.4% to $92.53 on Tuesday morning.

Oil and natural gas prices rose after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Brent crude, the international benchmark, has risen more than 55% through mid-June since the start of the year, also benefiting companies such as

 

Chevron

(CVX) and

 

Exxon Mobil

(XOM).

For Marathon, this means higher profits. Its refining and marketing margins tripled to $37.54 a barrel in the quarter ended in June from $12.45 in the same period last year.

The company used nearly 100% of its crude oil refining capacity in the quarter, raising throughput, or the amount of oil processed each day, to 3.1 million barrels. Analysts had expected 2.96 million barrels per day. In the second quarter of last year, utilization was 94%, or 2.9 million barrels per day.

“We accomplished a lot during the quarter,” said CEO Michael J. Hennigan. “Our team has handled product delivery to meet strong market demand…”

The company expects production of 2.9 million barrels in the third quarter, while

 

FactSet

the consensus forecast is for 2.94 million.

Write to Karishma Vanjani at karishma.vanjani@dowjones.com

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