Big Oil Payouts Exceed Earnings for Three Integrated Supermajors

Third-quarter earnings slid at three large integrated supermajor oil companies - Exxon Mobil Corporation (Spring, Texas), Chevron Corporation (Houston, Texas) and BP plc (London, England) - and quarterly payouts to shareholders outstripped earnings for ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell plc (London, England), forcing them to use proceeds from asset sales or dig into their retained earnings to fund hefty dividend payments and share buybacks. BP's reported earnings for the quarter equaled its investor