* Q1 EPS Street view $2.07
* Output pegged higher
* E&P, chemical, refining all seen up
* News may be priced into stock
By Anna Driver
HOUSTON, April 28 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp's first-quarter earnings are expected to surge almost 60 percent on higher crude oil prices and increased refining and chemicals profits.
The world's largest publicly traded oil company's stock rose 15 percent in the quarter, outperforming a 6 percent increase in the Dow Jones industrial average . So the benefits of triple-digit crude oil prices are likely already priced into the stock, analysts and investors said.
Any rally in the stock may need more of a catalyst than a run-of-the-mill earnings beat.
"I would expect to see improvement in all of their businesses," Allen Good, oil analyst with Morningstar, said.
"But a lot of the factors driving earnings have been telegraphed throughout the quarter. You watched the price of oil going up, so I think it would be hard to shock the market."
Still, big profits may spur the Irving, Texas-based company to increase its share buybacks in the current quarter, Good said.
Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and improving global demand have fueled a rally in crude oil, with current prices over $100 per barrel. An improving global economy has also increased demand for crude.
In the first quarter, the average benchmark U.S. oil price
Gains in crude oil are expected to boost Exxon's earnings more than 59 percent to $10 billion, or $2.07 per share, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Exxon's production is expected to rise sharply, boosted by its acquisition of North American natural gas exploration and production company XTO Energy Inc in June 2010.
Wall Street analysts are estimating Exxon's first-quarter production around 4.8 million to 4.9 million barrels oil equivalent (BOE) per day, compared with output of 4.36 million BOE per day a year earlier.
Analysts at Barclays Capital expect Exxon's chemicals business to report a first-quarter profit of $1.3 billion, an increase of more than 6 percent from the 2010 quarter.
Barclays expects Exxon's first-quarter refining profits to rise to more than $1 billion from $37 million a year earlier, as the company sees higher refining margins and exports from the Gulf of Mexico. (Reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Derek Caney)