It may be a bit of a stretch as metaphors go, but it appears that French oil company Total (NYSE: TOT), which happens to be a Motley Fool Income Investor selection, is firing on all cylinders. And more importantly, the company is clearly taking steps to ensure that its success is not a flash in the oil pan.
Let's look first at Total's results for the December quarter, when earnings rose to 3.6 billion euro. That's $5.23 billion, and compares to 2.23 billion euro last year. If you do away with an array of special items, the recent quarter's net comes to 3.11 billion euro, a 14% increase from the same period in 2006. Expressed in dollars, the company's diluted EPS jumped by 29% to $1.99.
Upstream, Total managed to increase its daily output by 2.4%, putting it in the same smiley face category as BP (NYSE: BP), which also squeezed out a production increase. The two companies stand in marked contrast to ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) (NYSE: RDS-B), all of which watched their daily production numbers slip in the quarter. The higher production, coupled with rapidly increasing oil prices, made for a 53% hike in the segment's adjusted operating income.
And beyond that, while other integrated companies like BP, Marathon (NYSE: MRO), and Chevron reported lower downstream profits, Total's refining and marketing operating income increased by 12%.
Total also made strides to benefit its future, with a deepwater discovery off Angola, and another find in the Congo. It inked a partnership agreement to study a heavy oil project in Venezuela and entered into another pact involving a nuclear power plant project in the U.A.E.
Of even more interest for those of us in the U.S. of A., the company will spend $2.2 billion on a major expansion of its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. That's the same city where Shell is nearly doubling the size of its own refinery facility.
At a time when this cowboy believes that energy will be the most important sector overall for many years to come, Total's told us some good stuff. I therefore urge Fools with a taste for oil to include this well-managed integrated international player near the top of their sector watch list.
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