The number two U.S. oil major, Chevron Corp, reported second-quarter earnings that above Wall Street expectations on Sunday. Chief Executive Michael Wirth also indicated that the company is still open to new acquisitions and raising shareholder payments this year.

Chevron revealed a $6 billion net profit for the three months ended June 30 in a rare preview of its results that also happened to coincide with the planned retirement of its finance chief. The complete results will be released on Friday.

The adjusted profit of $3.08 per share outperformed Wall Street’s consensus forecast of $2.97 per share, while being less than half of the record profit in the same period previous year.

“The macro price environment has softened a little bit versus the first quarter,” Wirth said in an interview outlining changes to the company’s financial and operating executive team. “It is still a strong quarter.”

“We had high levels of operating performance (and) very, very little unplanned downtime across our portfolio,” Wirth said.

Chevron produced 772,000 barrels of oil and gas per day in the Permian Basin, the largest shale field in the United States. In the Permian, the volume was “the highest quarter we’ve ever had and 10% over the same quarter last year,” according to Wirth.

“Continues to be on schedule and on budget,” he added of the company’s expansion project in Kazakhstan.

Wirth gave the impression that the corporation is still open to M&A transactions and raising shareholder dividends.

“We’ve got the ability to do both,” Wirth said. “We don’t have to trade off one against the other.”

Earlier this year, the business decided to buy PDC Energy for $7.6 billion in cash and debt. The transaction will be finalised next month.

“We will go up to about 400,000 barrels a day in DJ basin, which is roughly twice what it is today, when the deal closes,” Wirth said.

(Adapted from MarketScreener.com)