Exxon racks up nearly $20B in Q3 profit, its most lucrative quarter ever

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Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) +2.2% pre-market Friday after releasing Q3 adjusted earnings and revenues that easily topped Wall Street expectations, helped by high oil prices and skyrocketing natural gas prices, and raising its quarterly dividend by 3.4% to $0.91/share.

Q3 net income totaled a record $19.66B, or $4.68/share, jumping 10% from the previous quarter's $17.9B, which also set a profit record at the time.

Earnings were driven by record refining volumes, strict cost controls and higher natural gas prices, which offset lower crude prices and weaker industry refining margins, the company said.

Q3 revenues surged 52% Y/Y to $112.07B from $73.78B in the year-ago quarter.

Q3 production totaled 3.7M boe/day, including a quarterly record from the Permian Basin of nearly 560K boe/day; gross production from offshore Guyana rose to nearly 360K boe/day.

Gas realizations increased 22% on European supply concerns and efforts to build inventory ahead of winter, more than offsetting the impact of decreasing crude realizations, which were down 12% on modest supply increases.

Exxon (XOM) said it achieved the best-ever quarterly refining throughput in North America and highest globally since 2008.

Cash increased by $11.6B to reflect a cash balance of $30.5B at the end of the quarter, with free cash flow of $22B; debt-to-capital ratio is now 19%, just below the low end of the company's target range.

Exxon Mobil's (XOM) stock price return shows a 69% YTD gain and a 67% increase during the past year.