Chevron 3Q Profit Doubles To $7.89 Billion On Higher Oil Rates

San Ramon, CA (AHN) - Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) announced Friday its profit in the third quarter doubled as oil prices reached to peak level in the month of July.

The San Ramon, California- based company said net income rose to $7.9 billion or $3.85 per share for the third quarter, compared with $3.7 billion or $1.75 per share, a year earlier in the same period.

The market analysts on Wall Street had expected the country's second largest oil company to post a profit of $3.25 per share.

Total revenue of the firm jumped 43 percent to $78.87 billion in the third quarter 2008, compared to $55.17 billion reported a year ago in the same period.

"Earnings for our upstream operations benefited from prices for crude oil that were significantly higher than in last year's third quarter," Chairman and CEO Dave O'Reilly said in a statement on Friday.

On July 11, oil hit a record high price of $147.27 a barrel.

He added, "This improvement in earnings was tempered, however, by effects of the September hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico."

The company had to shut down its facilities due to the hurricanes and led to a decline of around 150,000 barrels of oil-equivalent production per day in September.

O'Reilly said, hurricane-related expenses in the third quarter reduced upstream income by around $400 million, which were offset by gains on upstream asset sales in the period.

For the first nine months of 2008, earnings for the company was $19.0 billion or $9.23 per share, compared to $13.8 billion or $6.45 per share for the same period in 2007.

Shares of was trading down by 63 cents or 0.85 percent to $73.55 at 1:05pm ET in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Friday.

The stock has declined as much as 21 percent so far this year through yesterday. The firm has traded as low as $55.50 and as high as $104.63 in the last 52 weeks.