Exxon gains from Soaring Oil Prices, beats own Record

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest oil company Friday reported its quarterly and annual profits and declared that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company. The company broke through $40 billion for the first time.

Net income in the fourth quarter was $11.7 billion that surpassed the company’s own mark of $10.71 billion, set in the fourth quarter of 2005. The most recent earnings were $2.13 a share up 14 percent from a year ago, when Exxon earned $10.25 billion, or $1.76 a share. After missing targets in the last two quarters, the company neatly beat analysts’ expectations of $1.95 a share.

In the full fiscal year, the Irving, Texas-based firm said it earned $40.6 billion; outshining its own record of $39.5 billion in 2006. Revenue, which rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter, to $116.6 billion, jumped to a company record $404.5 billion in 2007 from $377.64 billion last year.

The high profits were fueled by soaring oil prices and higher demand for gasoline last year. For most of the fourth quarter, oil remained near $90 a barrel.

The price of crude oil has increased by almost 50 per cent in 2007. Exxon refused to take responsibility for the rise in prices.

"We continued to supply crude oil and natural gas volumes to meet the world's energy needs through disciplined development and operation of our globally diverse resource base," said Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil's chairman. "Our long-term investment programme, in projects often far from major consuming nations, continued to provide resources essential to the increasingly interdependent global energy supply network."

Chevron Corp., the second-largest oil company of the U.S., said Friday that fourth-quarter earnings were up 29 percent, to $4.88 billion, or $2.32 a share, from $3.77 billion, or $1.74 a share, a year earlier. Revenue also went up 29 percent, to $61.41 billion.

Shares of Exxon were down 45 cents, to $85.95 while Chevron lost 76 cents, to $82.49 on the New York Stock Exchange.