HOUSTON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Phillips 66, an American diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company headquartered in Houston, U.S. state of Texas, announced Tuesday first-quarter (Q1) 2019 earnings of 204 million U.S. dollars, compared with 2.2 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018.
The multinational energy company said that excluding special items of 17 million dollars in the first quarter, adjusted earnings were 187 million dollars, compared with fourth-quarter 2018 adjusted earnings of 2.3 billion dollars.
Midstream first-quarter pre-tax income was 316 million dollars, compared with 379 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018. Transportation first-quarter adjusted pre-tax income of 203 million dollars was 31 million dollars lower than fourth-quarter 2018 adjusted pre-tax income of 234 million dollars, mainly reflecting lower pipeline and terminal throughput volumes, driven by seasonal refinery turnaround activities, as well as lower equity affiliate earnings.
The Chemicals segment reflects Phillips 66's equity investment in Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC. Chemicals' first-quarter pre-tax income was 227 million dollars, compared with 152 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Refining had a first-quarter pre-tax loss of 198 million dollars, compared with pre-tax income of 2 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018. Refining had an adjusted pre-tax loss of 219 million dollars in the first quarter, compared with adjusted pre-tax income of 2 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018. The decrease was a result of a decline in realized margins, as well as lower volumes due to maintenance activity and unplanned downtime.
Realized margins were down 56 percent to 7.23 dollars per barrel in the first quarter, driven by narrowing of inland crude differentials, primarily Canadian crude, and lower clean product realizations.
Phillips 66's worldwide crude utilization rate was 84 percent, down from 99 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Pre-tax turnaround costs for the first quarter were 148 million dollars, compared with fourth-quarter 2018 costs of 130 million dollars. Clean product yield was 85 percent in the first quarter.
Corporate and Other first-quarter pre-tax costs were 210 million dollars, compared with pre-tax costs of 203 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2018. Corporate and Other pre-tax costs in the fourth quarter of 2018 included pension settlement expense of 2 million dollars.
With a portfolio of midstream, chemicals, refining, and marketing and specialties businesses, Phillips 66 processes, transports, stores and markets fuels and products globally.
