itsmeeeeeee

Title
Exxon Mobil posts record profits

Link
Exxon Mobil posts record profits - Yahoo! News
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Excerpt

Exxon Mobil posts record profits

By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer 49 minutes ago

HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at year's end.

Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil made in 2006.

The eye-popping results weren't a surprise given record prices for a barrel of oil at the end of 2007. For much of the fourth quarter, they hovered around $90 a barrel, more than 50 percent higher than a year ago.

Crude prices reached an all-time trading high of $100.09 on Jan. 3 but have fallen about 10 percent since.

The record profit for the October-December period amounted to $2.13 a share versus $1.76 a share in 2006. Year-ago net income was $10.25 billion.

Also extraordinary was Exxon Mobil's revenue, which rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter to $116.6 billion from $90 billion a year ago.

For the year, sales rose to $404.5 billion — the most ever for the Irving, Texas-based company — from the $377.64 billion it posted in 2006.

In a statement, Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson said the company continued to meet the world's energy needs through its "globally diverse resource base."

"Our long-term investment program, in projects often far from major consuming nations, continued to provide resources essential to the increasingly interdependent global energy supply network," Tillerson said.

Exxon Mobil produces about 3 percent of the world's oil.

Its shares fell 37 cents to $86.03 in morning trading after rising as high as $87.86 earlier in the session.

Higher commodity prices in the quarter were clearly evident from earnings at Exxon Mobil's exploration and production arm, known as the upstream. Income rose 32 percent to $8.2 billion from $6.2 billion a year ago.

On an oil-equivalent basis, production increased nearly 1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006. Excluding the expropriation of its Venezuelan assets last year, divestments and other factors, production rose nearly 3 percent.

Refining and marketing, or downstream, earnings were $2.3 billion, up from nearly 2 billion in the year-ago quarter, as improved refining operations offset lower U.S. refining margins.

In the U.S., downstream earnings were off sharply from a year ago — $622 million in the most-recent quarter versus $945 million in 2006.

Refining margins — the difference between the cost of crude and what the company makes on refined products such as gasoline — have been squeezed in recent months as spiking oil prices outpaced increases in gasoline prices and other refined products.

Already, ConocoPhillips has said record oil prices at the end of 2007 helped it post a 37 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit, even as it produced less crude and natural gas than a year earlier. Its fourth-quarter net income rose to $4.37 billion versus $3.2 billion a year earlier.

ConocoPhillips is the nation's third-largest integrated oil company behind Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp.

Chevron reporrted separately Friday its profit rose 29.2 percent in the fourth quarter, as surging prices for crude oil offset weak results from its refining business. It earned $4.88 billion, or $2.32 per share, from $3.77 billion, or $1.74 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 29 percent to $61.41 billion from $47.75 billion.

On Thursday, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, reported fourth-quarter profit rose 60 percent to $8.47 billion on asset sales and higher oil prices. What's more, the Anglo-Dutch company said full-year net profit was a company record $31.3 billion, up 23 percent from the prior year.

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Comment:

when is this going to stop?

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cheapseats

.

WHEN WE PROSECUTE PRICE COLLUSION
AND INSTITUTE WINDFALL PROFITS TAX

And boycott ONE major.

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cheapseats

Of course, prosecuting price collusion and instituting windfall profits taxes takes time and balls.

I go on record AGAIN as being a fundamentally peaceable and non-violent person. That said, human history documents that the death of a few kingpins would expedite correction of Oil Market Mayhem. This fucker, for instance:

"In a statement, Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson said the company continued to meet the world's energy needs through its 'globally diverse resource base.'"

One can speculate that, in Rex T's world...more like T Rex...burning the dead bodies of all the people we kill over oil is 'on the table' as a renewable energy source.

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cheapseats

Heartless, relentless, straightforward, effective, take no prisoners...that's the way Big Money rolls.
.

BOYCOTT EXXON MOBIL

So simple, George Bush gets it.

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JeffinCO

Congratulations, GW.

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"Oh, what a lovely little.."

DRS112

I haven't been able to be that upset at them...they're selling gas at the same price as everybody else...but they've managed to get higher profit margins and revenues....why be mad at them for it? What's the bigger sin...charging the same price of oil as everybody else...only doing it better or being a company like CITGO(OWNED BY VENEZUELA) and doing it poorly? Would you rather they struggled so they have to lay people off? Would you rather have them struggle so that they have less money to invest in cleaner fuels or being more efficient driving down the price of gas(which may explain why they do earn higher returns), Oh...and their profit margins are about 10%...so at $3.00/gal(which it's cheaper here, about $2.92) even if you removed ALL profits the gas would be $2.70....

Now...don't get me started on subsidies...cause we all know I don't support giving to them.

cheapseats

What are the chances of that, absent collusion?

Personal Trainer Slim to none, THAT'S what the chances are.

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mudwhistle

Liberals would rather see Citgo be successful than ExxonMobil. It would validate their communist ideals. Here and American company is doing well and instead of celebrating liberals are up in arms. Good news for America is bad news for Democrats. But they still managed to blame it on Bush so it isn't a total loss.

DRS112

It's perfectly logical...Most likely as I edited my other posts to say, they can produce gas at the price they are and earn higher returns...The other companies have to drop their prices so they don't lose market share and total profits...but they do lose in their profit margin

mudwhistle

They're about 100% chances of that. Since everyone's gas prices are based on the world price of oil which is set by OPEC.