Three of the large lubricants producers all reported positive ends to the financial year after revealing their Q4 figures.
Chevron Corporation saw a $9bn boost to annual earnings at $19bn for 2010, helped by a year-on-year improvement of $2.2bn in Q4 earnings at $5.3bn, with downstream asset sales helping to inject $400m. Despite a stronger impact from currency fluctuations, Q4 sales and other operating revenues improved in 2010 to $52bn, from $48bn for the same period in 2009.
Chevron's US and International downstream operations both turned 2009 Q4 losses into significant gains in 2010 putting them $475m and $267m in the black respectively.
For ConocoPhillips, the news was also good, with Q4 earnings of $2bn (adjusted to $1.9bn a 54% improvement year-on-year. This lifted overall earnings for the year to $11.4bn, $7bn higher than 2009. The company declared itself "pleased" with the figures after targeting debt reduction and improved returns to the business and shareholders, with both upstream and downstream operations delivering on target.
Meanwhile Valvoline parent company, Ashland, announced "solid" Q4 results with net income of $87m - just $1m up on the previous year. Sales improved by 8% to $1.4bn across the company. Valvoline sales showed a 10% year-on-year improvement, although volumes were largely unchanged at 40.4 million gallons for Q4, however operating income was off 3% at $65m from $67m in Q4 2009.