Chevron Quarter Profit Up to $4.14B

Chevron Corp.’s fourth-quarter profit rose to $4.14 billion from $3.44 billion as oil and fuel prices jumped. Per-share profit climbed to $1.86 from $1.63 a year earlier, according to Bloomberg.

Shares of Chevron yesterday fell $1.04 to $60.22 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock, which has climbed 6 percent this month, has 16 buy ratings, eight hold recommendations and one sell rating from analysts.

U.S. crude-oil futures traded at a record fourth-quarter average of $60.05 a barrel, up 24 percent from a year earlier, as damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crimped production in the Gulf of Mexico, the biggest domestic source of oil and natural gas. Growing demand, fed by economic expansion in North America, China and India, has pushed oil producers and refiners close to capacity.

Oil futures surged 40 percent in 2005, the fourth straight yearly gain and the longest streak of increases since the contracts began trading in New York in 1983. Chevron gets about 85 percent of its profit from oil and gas sales. The rest comes from gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, chemicals, pipelines and coal.

(Source: Bloomberg)