Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 1, 2024 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Jim Chapman - Treasurer, and Vice President of Investor Relations
Darren Woods - Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer
Kathy Mikells - Senior Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Devin McDermott - Morgan Stanley
Neil Mehta - Goldman Sachs
Doug Leggett - Wolfe Research
John Royall - J.P. Morgan
Betty Jiang - Barclays Capital
Bob Brackett - Bernstein Research
Jean Ann Salisbury - Bank of America
Biraj Borkhataria - RBC Capital Markets
Ryan Todd - Piper Sandler
Paul Cheng - Scotiabank
Jason Gabelman - Cowen & Company
Roger Read - Wells Fargo

Jim Chapman

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to ExxonMobil's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. We appreciate you joining us today. I'm Jim Chapman, Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations. I'm joined by Darren Woods, Chairman and CEO; and Kathy Mikells, Senior Vice President and CFO. This quarter's presentation and pre-recorded remarks are available on the Investors section of our Web site. They are meant to accompany the third quarter earnings news release, which is posted in the same location.

During today's presentation, we'll make forward-looking comments, including discussion of our long-term plans and integration efforts, which are still being developed and which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please read our cautionary statement on slide two. You can find more information on the risks and uncertainties that apply to any forward-looking statements in our SEC filings on our Web site. Note that we also provided supplemental information at the end of our earnings slides, which are also posted on the Web site.

And now, I'll turn it over to Darren for opening remarks.

Darren Woods

Good morning and thanks for joining us. ExxonMobil's announced earnings of $8.6 billion this morning, one of our best third quarters in the past decade. Even more importantly, this quarter's results continue to demonstrate our enterprise-wide transformation is improving the earnings power of the company. Our Energy Products business provides a compelling proof point. In 2024, year-to-date earnings are roughly double what they were in the same period of 2019 on a constant margin basis. For all of our businesses, we've been focused on reduced cost, higher-return investments, and selected divestments to improve profitability, particularly in bottom-of-cycle conditions. This work has fundamentally transformed our refining business.

For instance, we've high-graded our portfolio by divesting less advantaged sites. At the time of the Exxon and Mobil merger, we had 45 refineries. In 2017, when I stepped into this job, we had 22. I expect to end this year with 15, bringing us very close to an entire portfolio advantaged by location and configuration. We've also significantly improved our product yield. By investing in assets, such as the Rotterdam Advanced Hydrocracker and the Beaumont expansion, we've increased the yield of higher-value products from lower-value feeds. Finally, we've achieved dramatic structural cost savings. In our overall Product Solutions business, we've reduced cost by $5 billion versus 2019. In Energy Products specifically, to take one example, we completed our first-half 2024 turnarounds for $200 million less than the previous turnarounds on these assets, a 24% reduction.