‘very pleased with the quarter’

Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE: XOM) on Tuesday said its Q4 revenue came in shy of Street estimates. Shares still jumped more than 5.0% on a $2.12 billion sequential increase in net income.

Key takeaways from Exxon’s Q4 earnings report

At $8.87 billion, Exxon’s net income noted a magnificent growth versus the same quarter last year when it was still in $20.07 billion in loss. Adjusted for one-time items, the oil giant earned $2.05 a share, as per the earnings press release.

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The American multinational reported $84.97 billion in revenue that represents a YoY growth of 82.6%. According to FactSet, experts had forecast $1.94 of adjusted EPS but an even higher $85.01 billion in revenue.

Other notable figures include a 2.0% increase in oil-equivalent production. Refining throughput in downstream hit a record since 2013. Easing travel restrictions, which stimulated transportation demand helped improve margins as well.

Exxon had recently announced a $10 billion stock buyback programme that is now under process. Earlier in January, XOM said it will zero out emissions from operations by 2050.

Highlights from CEO Woods’ interview on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’

On CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, CEO Darren Woods attributed strong Q4 results to higher oil prices and strategic measures that Exxon has been taking since 2018.

It’s the work that we’ve been doing since 2018 around significant organisational changes and $5.0 billion in structural cost improvements over the past two years. We’ve become more effective, and you’re seeing that manifest in our earnings performance.

The earnings report comes a day after Exxon said it will move its headquarters to Houston, Texas. The oil company is also set to merge refining and chemicals into one business and make low carbon solutions an exclusive segment. Woods added:

It’s a continuum that we’ve been working on. The first job was to realign our 11 operating companies along value change to start leveraging synergies, which will manifest in terms of effectiveness. Harmonising processes will also remove redundancies and drive costs down.

Exxon expects to cut costs by $2.0 billion this year and another $2.0 billion in 2023.