FattyJJ

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But they arent overpricing the fuel at all, I swear!

Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007.

Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude prices.

Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said fourth-quarter net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share. That's up from $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share, in the year-ago period.

That topped Exxon's previous quarterly profit record of $10.7 billion, set in the fourth quarter of 2005, which also was a record for a U.S. corporation.

"Exxon can put out some amazing numbers and this is one of those cases," said Jason Gammel, senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in New York.

Exxon also set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion last year - or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007. That exceeded its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006. In the fourth quarter, revenue rose 29.5% from a year ago to $116.64 billion.

Analysts were looking for the company to report quarterly profit of $10.36 billion on revenue of $114.9 billion, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial.

Despite topping Wall Street's estimates, Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) shares slipped in morning trading.

Exxon attributed its impressive results to strong performance across its divisions, but a large part of the profit surge was underpinned by climbing oil prices.

Crude prices skyrocketed nearly 60% last year. The surge helped prices break through the $100 a barrel mark for the first time ever early last month. Since crossing that milestone, prices have eased to around $91 a barrel.

Natural gas prices also jumped last year, albeit marginally. But costs have also increased for the oil companies, which is why profits haven't risen as rapidly as crude prices.

Big oil companies that both pump oil and refine crude into gasoline have to spend more for crude but are unable to pass on all the extra cost to consumers, which eats in to gasoline profit margins.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit an all-time high of $3.227 in May, according to the motorist organization AAA. The high prices were blamed on strong demand and a series of accidents that shut down refineries in the U.S. Slack demand for gasoline in the latter half of last year kept gas prices from rising as much as crude prices.

Exxon's earnings are likely to draw fire from consumer rights groups, who contend the oil industry is deliberately restricting supply and profiting on the back of U.S. motorists. They have previously called for a windfall profit tax on oil firms and have proposed breaking up the big oil companies created during the 1990s merger wave.

Exxon isn't the only oil giant to report impressive earnings. No. 2 Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) also reported a jump in quarterly profit on Friday. Conoco (COP, Fortune 500), the nation's third largest oil company, trounced profit estimates by nearly 25% when it reported last week.

BackdoorJesus

"God, I hate those guys..."

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Krasch

Agreed.

They told us in Ontario last spring we'd be paying $1.25 per litre of gas by that summer, and this year I believe they're talking $1.50.

Of course last year it didn't end up coming even close to the prediction.

If the price of gasoline were really due to the price of crude like they keep telling us, shouldn't they have been RIGHT last summer?

I'll believe it when I see it.

Lazer

I am betting we see $4.50 a gallon here in the summer.
Same old same old. rich get richer.
As oil goes up. the percentage the oil companies as a mark up on the sale goes up.
As an example. Not fact.
If oil is $20 a barrel, and the oil companies mark up is 10%, they are charging the customer $22 a barrel.
Now if the cost of a barrel rises to $30, The markup becomes $33 a barrel.
Instead of making $2 profit on a barrel, They now are profiting $3 on a barrel. multiply that buy how many barrels a day are consumed. Thats millions of dollars a day extra profit. hypothetically that is.

canu

damien666

With all of the money Exxon is making one would think that they could afford to pay the fishermen what is owed from the Valdez spill in Prince William Sound.

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Rob and I are a team, we're like Burt and Ernie or Ebert and that dead guy.

CD

Yes, but that would eat into their profits. Ergo, they won't go along with that.

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ddoubleez

You should see what texaco did to equador!!!!

Krasch

Actually they make more.

The gas that's in a station's tanks for you to buy, THEY ALREADY BOUGHT... at $20 a barrel.

If the cost rises to $30, that has ZERO effect on what they've already bought. It only affects what they buy NOW.

So if they charge $33, they make $3 PLUS the capital gains of $10 for a total of $13.

If the price of crude REALLY determined the price of gasoline, the price would only change when the station received a new supply of gas in their tanks, instead of every time the price of crude goes up, going up at the beginning of a weekend and down at the end of it EVERY WEEK LIKE CLOCKWORK. And they STILL try to snow us into believing their bugle oil.

ddoubleez

Another thing to consider, is that oil companies make arrangements that increases demand.......

Increase the use of oil by 20 million barrels per day and the profits will go up... I participate in these threads, because the increase in demand, and the rate it increases, is counterproductive for the success of man kind...
IMO, 115 bucks for a barrel of anything that takes 150 million years to make is too cheep! Diamonds are a good example of pricing a limited resource....

Exxon is not making record profits because they are charging us too much, oil companies are making too much money because they manipulate policies and government procedure... They use huge PR campaigns to deceive us on the availability and consequences of using the stuff, and stifle any competition that they may have.......

It is called fossil fuel for got sake, what is so advanced about us becoming dependent on anything that could be classified as a fossil...... And while you are thinking about it, mill around the idea that we have applied all the advances in technology on harvesting and burning this stuff up as quickly as possible, there is no logic in that......... 35 years ago, mpg ratings were better than they are now, only there are 25 times more drivers!

Krasch

MPG ratings might have been better 35 years ago, but such things are somewhat cyclical. People want great mileage, then they want more power, then they want huge storage space, etc.

We're already starting to see people turn away from SUV's because of the cost at the pumps. Car companies will be making increasingly smaller and more efficient vehicles because of this, at least until the public's tastes change again. Same reason hybrids and electric vehicles are finally getting a significant place in the market.