The Texas oil and gas giant earned $9.24 billion, or $2.14 per share, for the second quarter of 2024. Photo via exxonmobil.com

ExxonMobil recorded one of its largest second-quarter profits in a decade on surging quarterly production from oil and gas fields in Guyana and the Permian basin in the U.S., as well its $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources.

The Texas oil and gas giant earned $9.24 billion, or $2.14 per share, for the three months ended June 30, topping last year's profit of $7.88 billion, or $1.94 per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations, though Exxon does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research were expecting earnings of $2.04 per share.

“We achieved record quarterly production from our low-cost-of-supply Permian and Guyana assets, with the highest oil production since the Exxon and Mobil merger," Chairman and CEO Darren Woods said in a prepared statement Friday.

The Pioneer deal contributed $500 million to earnings in the first two months after closing, Exxon said.

Revenue for the Spring, Texas, company totaled $93.06 billion, topping Wall Street's expectations for $90.38 billion.

Exxon's net production reached 4.4 million oil-equivalent barrels per day during the second quarter, an increase of 15% compared with the first three months of the year.

Oil prices are lower than they were at this point last year, and those high prices sent Exxon and other energy giants on a buying spree.

Exxon announced in July 2023 that it would pay $4.9 billion for Denbury Resources, an oil and gas producer that has entered the business of capturing and storing carbon and stands to benefit from changes in U.S. climate policy.

Three months later it said it would spend $60 billion on shale operator Pioneer Natural Resources. That deal received clearance from the Federal Trade Commission in May.

In October Chevron said it would buy Hess Corp. for $53 billion, joining the acquisitions race.

Chevron Corp. also reported its second-quarter financial results on Friday, which fell far short of profit expectations.

In addition, the company said that it is moving its headquarters from San Ramon, California, to Houston, Texas. Chevron expects all corporate functions to transition to Houston over the next five years, with positions in support of its California operations remaining in San Ramon. Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth and Vice Chairman Mark Nelson will move to Houston before the end of the year.

Chevron currently has about 7,000 employees in the Houston area and approximately 2,000 employees in San Ramon. The company runs crude oil fields, technical facilities, and two refineries and supplies more than 1,800 retail stations in California.

Its shares slipped 1.7% before the opening bell.

Shares of ExxonMobil Corp. fell slightly in premarket trading. Chevron shares fell 1.7%.

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Houston energy-focused AI platform raises $5M in Mercury-led seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

CenterPoint reports progress on grid improvements ahead of 2025 hurricane season

grid resilience

As part of an ongoing process to make Houston better prepared for climate disasters, CenterPoint Energy announced its latest progress update on the second phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI).

CenterPoint reported that it has completed 70 percent of its resiliency work and all GHRI-related actions are expected to be complete before the official start of the 2025 hurricane season.

"Our entire CenterPoint Houston Electric team is focused on completing this historic suite of grid resiliency actions before the start of hurricane season,” Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of CenterPoint's Electric Business, said in a news release. “That is our goal, and we will achieve it. To date, we have made significant progress as part of this historic effort.”

CenterPoint’s resiliency solutions include clearing higher-risk vegetation across thousands of miles of power lines, adding thousands more automation devices capable of self-healing, installing thousands of storm-resistant poles, and undergrounding hundreds of miles of power lines.

CenterPoint's GHRI efforts, which entered a second phase in September 2024, aim to improve overall grid resiliency and reliability and are estimated to reduce outages for customers by more than 125 million minutes annually, according to the company. It has undergrounded nearly 350 miles of power lines, about 85 percent of the way toward its target of 400 miles, which will help improve resiliency and reduce the risk of outages. CenterPoint also aims to install the first of 100 new local weather monitoring stations by June 1.

In March, CenterPoint cleared 655 miles of high-risk vegetation near power lines, installed 1,215 automated reliability devices capable of self-healing, and added an additional 3,300 storm-resilient poles.

In April, CenterPoint will begin building a network of 100 new weather monitoring stations, which will provide 24/7 weather monitoring and storm response preparation.

“We will continue to work every day to complete these critical improvements as part of our company's goal of building the most resilient coastal grid in the country,” Carroll added in the release.

ExxonMobil, Rice launch sustainability initiative with first project underway

power partners

Houston-based ExxonMobil and Rice University announced a master research agreement this week to collaborate on research initiatives on sustainable energy efforts and solutions. The agreement includes one project that’s underway and more that are expected to launch this year.

“Our commitment to science and engineering, combined with Rice’s exceptional resources for research and innovation, will drive solutions to help meet growing energy demand,” Mike Zamora, president of ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Co., said in a news release. “We’re thrilled to work together with Rice.”

Rice and Exxon will aim to develop “systematic and comprehensive solutions” to support the global energy transition, according to Rice. The university will pull from the university’s prowess in materials science, polymers and catalysts, high-performance computing and applied mathematics.

“Our agreement with ExxonMobil highlights Rice’s ability to bring together diverse expertise to create lasting solutions,” Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in the release. “This collaboration allows us to tackle key challenges in energy, water and resource sustainability by harnessing the power of an interdisciplinary systems approach.”

The first research project under the agreement focuses on developing advanced technologies to treat desalinated produced water from oil and gas operations for potential reuse. It's being led by Qilin Li, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice and co-director of the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center.

Li’s research employs electrochemical advanced oxidation processes to remove harmful organic compounds and ammonia-nitrogen, aiming to make the water safe for applications such as agriculture, wildlife and industrial processes. Additionally, the project explores recovering ammonia and producing hydrogen, contributing to sustainable resource management.

Additional projects under the agreement with Exxon are set to launch in the coming months and years, according to Rice.