For the quarter, profit was $5.35 billion compared to $8.19 billion in the same quarter of the prior year. For the nine months of 2009, profit was $12.28 billion compared to $24.5 billion in the same period of the last year.
The company’s third-quarter replacement cost profit was $4.99 billion, a decrease of 50% compared to $10.03 billion in the year ago quarter. For the nine months, replacement cost profit was $10.5 billion, a decline of 54% compared to $23 billion in the previous year quarter.
Production for the quarter was 3,917mboe/d, 7% higher than the third quarter of 2008. This increase primarily reflects continued strong operational performance and the absence of hurricanes, which impacted the third quarter of 2008.
Production for the first nine months was 3,979mboe/d, 4% higher than the same period last year. After adjusting for the effect of entitlement changes in PSAs and the effect of OPEC quota restrictions, production was 5% higher than the same period of 2008.
In Fuels Value Chains, refining throughput for the third quarter increased to 2,329mb/d, compared to 2,185mb/d for the same period a year ago. This throughput increase was the result of improved refining operations in the US. This allowed additional margin capture in the US region, where refining margins have held up better than in Europe and Asia. Solomon refining availability was up by more than six percentage points year on year.
In the International Businesses, margin capture has been strong compared to the third quarter of 2008. In Petrochemicals, volumes were over 20% higher than in the second quarter and also higher than the same period last year.
