Exxon shatters all-time profit record

[PrincessArky]

Exxon shatters all-time profit record
World's biggest oil company books $11.7 billion in profits during the quarter, blowing past estimates.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company.

Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) shares gained nearly 2% in pre-market trading on the news.

Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share, from $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share a year ago.

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

Exxon also shattered its previous yearly record by earning $40.61 billion last year, ahead of its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006.

That breaks down to earnings of nearly $1,300 per second for the year.

Revenue rose 29.5% to $116.64 billion from $90 billion a year ago.

The company was expected to report results of $10.36 billion on revenue of $114.9 billion, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial.

Exxon is the latest oil giant to report impressive earnings. Conoco (COP, Fortune 500), the nation's third largest oil company, trounced profit estimates by nearly 25 percent when it reported last week.

Number two Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) is also expected to do well. Analysts are expecting a 30 percent increase in earnings per share when it reports Friday.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/companies/exxon_earnings/index.htm?cnn=yes

well I guess they have something to be proud of......shame it is hurting all of us at the pump not that I buy Exxon gas but I know all the other companies are just as bad

[Mini]

They make $11 billion dollars but yet thats still disappointing. Lets put them on minimum wage and make them pay $4 a gallon and see how they feel then.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) posted a $10.89 billion first-quarter profit on Thursday, but still managed to disappoint investors as weak production volumes and low refining margins blunted the impact of record-high crude prices.

Earnings rose 17 percent year over year, and were the second-highest in U.S. history, but still fell short of Wall Street expectations, and its shares dropped 3.6 percent.

Exxon's near-record profits brought sharpened scrutiny from politicians and consumer groups, who are upset about sky-high gasoline prices at the pump.

Benchmark U.S. oil prices averaged a record of nearly $98 a barrel during the quarter, up about 70 percent from a year earlier.

Exxon posted record earnings of $40.6 billion in 2007, with revenue higher than the gross domestic product of Turkey, the world's 17th-largest economy. If oil prices stay above or around $100 for the remainder of 2008, the company could beat that mark.

A steep drop in profit margins for gasoline cut into Exxon's earnings as the company, like other refiners, struggled to pass on higher crude costs to customers. First-quarter gasoline prices rose 33 percent year over year in the United States -- less than half crude's rise.

Exxon's oil and gas production also fell 5.6 percent in the quarter.

Chris MacDonald, portfolio manager at WHG Funds, said the production decline was "kind of shocking."

"It makes the future seem kind of dire, because this quarter they really got bailed out by high oil prices ... It kind of shows that you're at the limit of big new finds."

The company has been criticized by analysts and investors for laying back on capital spending while going full bore on share buybacks.

Exxon spent $31.8 billion to buy back shares in 2007, while shelling out $20.9 billion for capital expenditures. In 2008, the company expects to increase its capital spending to around $25 billion.

"It seems that they are more of a share buyback machine that also happens to produce energy," MacDonald said.

Earlier this week, European oil majors BP Plc (BP.L) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) posted big first-quarter earnings gains as the crude oil surge was an even bigger boon for them than expected. Both companies had flat production during the quarter.

REVENUE OF $117 BILLION

The world's largest publicly traded company earned $2.03 a share in the first quarter, up from net income of $9.28 billion, or $1.62 a share, in the same period last year.

But analysts, on average, expected profit of $2.11, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose to $116.85 billion from $87.22 billion. The company also had a whopping 49 percent effective income tax rate in the quarter, up from 44 percent last year, which also weighed on earnings.

Earnings at its exploration and production segment increased 45 percent to $8.79 billion, while refining profits dropped 39 percent to $1.17 billion.

The company said its production shortfall resulted in part from production-sharing contracts that give host countries a larger share of oil and gas produced as commodity prices rise. The decline of older fields and the loss of operations that were nationalized by Venezuela last year also hurt.

Exxon reached a deal with a Nigerian oil union on Thursday after an eight-day old strike had shut down virtually all of the 800,000 barrels per day of production in the country, which could hit the company's second-quarter output figures.

"The question is going to come, and you always have to ask it every year: Are they seeing any acceleration in mature field declines? Because slowly the majors are beginning to see this to some degree," said James Halloran, energy analyst with National City Private Client Group in Cleveland.

Halloran is concerned because very little of the volume shortfall appears to be one-time items such as maintenance.

Earnings at Exxon's chemicals unit dropped 17 percent to $1.03 billion.

'DEVASTATING CHOICES'

"There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street," Democratic presidential hopeful, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, said in a statement.

"But on Main Street, middle-class families are facing devastating choices every day between buying groceries and filling up their gas tanks to get to work."

Exxon shares closed down $3.37 at $89.70 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The stock is off more than 4 percent this year, underperforming the Chicago Board Options Exchange's oil index (.OIX), which is nearly flat over the same period.

[gmyers]

Making that kind of money I wonder if the prices will ever lower.

[iluvmybaby]

Making that kind of money I wonder if the prices will ever lower.

No, it wont. When you make $$$ like that, you get addicted to it like crack

[CLARKS4]

No, it wont. When you make $$$ like that, you get addicted to it like crack

Exactly. When I first started driving gas was $0.89 a gallon. It's almost $3.89 now. We will be $4 by summer. It will not drop below $3.50 again. It's crazy. If you were to make them live like we have to they would just die.

[flute]

The price of gas costs more than my mortgage.

We are going to have to make some changes - like soon....

[Jolie Rouge]

Shell and BP downplay Record Profits

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1735821,00.html

Record Profits Reported for BP and Shell

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30oil.html?ref=business

[buglebe]

I still think the idea of buying off brand gas would work. It would force the big companies to lower their price. Unless of course the big companies own the off brand companies too.

[Jolie Rouge]

Unless of course the big companies own the off brand companies too.

They do.