Marathon Petroleum posts bumper profit on high demand, tight supply

(Reuters) -Marathon Petroleum Corp posted a more than three-fold jump in quarterly profit on Tuesday, benefiting from higher margins on sustained fuel demand and tight crude supplies, and boosted its share buyback programme by $5 billion.

Pandemic-era closure of facilities and demand recovery have lifted refiners’ margins, with crude supplies also coming under pressure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Strong demand for refined products has also helped the company, with jet fuel demand jumping recently.

Refining and marketing margin soared 70.8% to $26.15 per barrel for the January-March quarter, compared with a year earlier.

The top U.S refiner said crude capacity utilization was 89% in the reported quarter, lower than last year’s 91% due to planned maintenance activity in the Gulf Coast region.

U.S. oil refiners dialed back operating runs due to maintenance activities during the quarter after solid demand recovery led to sky-high utilization rates last year.

Marathon’s throughput of 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first-quarter was flat from last year.

For the current quarter, it expects throughput to be 2.86 million bpd.

The Findlay, Ohio-based refiner said net income attributable to the company stood at $2.7 billion, or $6.09 per share, for the three months ended March 31, compared with $845 million, or $1.49 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts were expecting a profit of $5.74, according to Refinitiv data.

In the first quarter, Marathon returned $3.5 billion through share buybacks and dividends and in April repurchased $1.2 billion of shares.

With the addition of Tuesday’s authorization, the company has a total of $9 billion available for stock repurchase.

Marathon shares rose 1.2% in premarket trade and have gained 5.2% so far this year.