Key Takeaways
- Chevron’s third-quarter adjusted EPS of $5.28 beat the $4.88 consensus, as downstream earnings more than quadrupled to $4.9 billion.
- Shares have slipped about 10% from their 52-week high as a Democratic sweep and Iran peace talks drained the war premium from oil.
- Chevron expects a $3 billion to $4 billion after-tax charge on the Hess Midstream sale in the fourth quarter.
- TotalEnergies is joining 26 Chevron-operated U.S. offshore blocks as exploration spending rises 50%, and the January 29 report is next.
Chevron (CVX) nearly tripled its adjusted earnings in the third quarter. Then the oil trade turned.
Adjusted earnings reached $10.4 billion, or $5.28 per share, against $1.85 a year earlier and a $4.88 consensus. Meanwhile, TotalEnergies (TTE) agreed to enter 26 Chevron-operated offshore exploration blocks in the U.S., so Chevron’s hunt for new barrels is now drawing outside capital.
Energy stocks fell on November 4 as a Democratic sweep in the midterms dented the Iran war risk premium in crude. Iran peace talks had already weighed on the group days earlier.
Chevron closed Friday at $213, about 10% below its $236 high. It’s still up 40% in 2026 on a total return basis.
Refining carried the quarter
Upstream usually gets the headlines. This time downstream did the heavy lifting, as earnings jumped to $4.9 billion from $1.1 billion on higher refined product margins.
- U.S. refineries set a crude throughput record of 1.09 million barrels per day, running near 98% utilization.
- Upstream earnings rose to $5.7 billion from $3.3 billion.
- Total debt fell $3.5 billion, and net debt dropped $7.8 billion in the quarter.
Production fell 109,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from a year earlier, mostly from lower entitlements at higher prices and Middle East disruptions. Price did the work.
Here’s the cash behind the beat.
Chevron (CVX): cash from operations and free cash flow, quarterly, $ billions, Q3 2024–Q3 2026 (TIKR)
Operating cash flow reached $16.0 billion, and free cash flow came in at $12.0 billion.
Spending more to find the next barrel
Chevron is raising exploration spending by 50% from 2025 levels, and management says its confidence in its prospects is the highest in years.
CEO Mike Wirth laid out the logic in the earnings release: “We’re reinvesting to bring more energy to a supply-constrained market.”
The pipeline is wide. Chevron’s Venezuela joint ventures plan to invest $7 billion over five years, and Iraq says it reached agreements with Chevron on the West Qurna-2 contract.
It’s also pruning. The Hess Midstream and DJ Basin midstream sale should deconsolidate debt and lift returns, and new deals cut Bakken midstream costs by about 50%.
Wall Street expects earnings to keep climbing…
Chevron (CVX): normalized EPS, actual and consensus estimates, $, fiscal 2022–2028 (TIKR)
Analysts project roughly 50% annual EPS growth over the next two years. That bar is high, even after this beat.
TIKR tracks 25 analysts on Chevron. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Chevron, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Chevron’s Analyst Ratings
The charge and the oil tape
The fourth quarter will be noisy. Chevron expects a $3 billion to $4 billion after-tax loss on the Hess Midstream deal, plus heavy turnarounds at Wheatstone LNG and October downtime from Hurricane Isaias.
Buybacks should continue at $2.5 billion to $3.0 billion. The $1.78 quarterly dividend yields 3.5%.
Valuation still looks modest. Chevron trades at 11.2x forward earnings and 5.8x forward EV/EBITDA, with net debt at just 0.4x EBITDA, and Wall Street’s average target of $243 implies 14.5% upside.
How does that compare with Exxon Mobil over five years?
Chevron (CVX): forward (NTM) P/E vs Exxon Mobil (XOM), last 5 years (TIKR)
Crude itself is the bigger swing factor, because forward estimates were built while the war premium was still in the price.
My take: This quarter proved Chevron can generate serious cash at these prices, and refining gave it a cushion that pure producers lack. But the forward numbers lean on an oil premium the market is already pricing out. At $213, I’d hold and add only on further oil weakness.
Chevron is expected to report full-year results on January 29. That report will show how big the Hess Midstream charge lands and whether buybacks stay near the top of the range.
So what is Chevron stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Chevron could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
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