Oil giant, ExxonMobil booked its first annual loss since the 1999 merger of Exxon and Mobil, and the first annual loss in at least 40 years after the pandemic crushed oil demand and prices and led to a huge domestic gas asset impairment.
ExxonMobil reported on Tuesday a loss of $22.44 billion for 2020, compared to earnings of $14.34 billion for 2019, due to the lower oil and gas prices and after-tax fourth-quarter impairment charges of $19.3 billion.
The impairment charge and the loss for the fourth quarter were not unexpected—Exxon had guided for a massive loss for fourth quarter due to a write-down of up to $20 billion of gas assets.
The fourth-quarter loss stood at $20.1 billion, including unfavorable identified items of $20.2 billion, mostly the impairments.
Excluding the impairments, Exxon squeezed earnings of $110 million, or $0.03 per share assuming dilution, for fourth quarter. The fourth-quarter earnings excluding the huge write-down beat the consensus estimate of the Wall Street Journal of earnings of $0.01 per share.
After the results release, Exxon’s shares were up by two per cent in pre-market trade.
Still, the massive impairment dragged Exxon into a fourth quarter loss, which was the fourth quarter in a row in which the U.S. supermajor has reported losses—all on the back of the crash in oil prices and demand in the pandemic.
