By Anna Driver
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp
Exxon stock rose 1.5 percent in premarket trading on Friday, while Chevron climbed 2.6 percent.
Exxon, which has a reputation for thriving in times of low commodity prices, handily topped Wall Street estimates.
"The results speak for themselves," said Fred Burke, president of Johnston Lemon Asset Management in Washington, D.C. "I still think Exxon is a low-cost producer, and at some point the price of oil will increase. They are doing all the right things right now."
The management teams at Exxon and Chevron are capable of steering the companies through a downtown, Burke said.
The energy sector has been hit hard by the twin blows of a sell-off in oil and gas prices and the global credit crunch, but the largest companies like Exxon and Chevron that have
billions in cash are better-suited to weather the downturn.
Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded company, said its net profit in the quarter was $7.8 billion, or $1.55 per share, compared with $11.7 billion, or $2.13 per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.45 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Exxon's oil and gas production fell 3 percent in the fourth quarter.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon and other energy companies have seen the record profits reaped in recent years vanish as average crude oil prices fell to about $59 a barrel in the fourth quarter from about $90 per barrel a year ago.
Chevron, the second largest U.S. oil company behind Exxon, saw its quarterly profit rise to $4.9 billion, or $2.44 per share, from $4.88 billion, or $2.32 per share, in the year-ago quarter, helped by the $600 million one-time gain in which it received stock for a producing field.
Excluding the one-time asset swap gain, Chevron's earnings slipped from a year earlier, but its $2.23 per share profit still topped analysts' average forecast of $1.79 per share, according to Reuters Estimates
Chevron's sales fell 28 percent to $43 billion.
(Editing by Dave Zimmerman)
