Oil and natural gas titan Exxon posts a fourth consecutive quarterly loss on Tuesday, marking the worst year for the company in over 40 years.
Exxon posted a whopping $22.4 billion loss yesterday, in large part due to $19.3 billion in write-downs from its losses in US-based natural gas fields. The company has also cut exploration and production by $21.4 billion this year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The news is not all negative for Exxon, reporting a modest gain of $110 million as commodity prices began to rise later in the quarter. Exxon’s large chemical business earned $691 million, boasting it’s best quarter since 2018. Further oil production off the coast of Guyana has increased to 120,000 barrels a day, and is expected to climb higher over the course of the next five years.
Exxon’s stock price is currently up 40% from its fall in November, and was up by 2% during Tuesday’s trading hours.
The company plans to reorganize its board in the next few months, and announced the election of a new board member Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin, former president of Malaysian oil company Petronas.