Exxon Strikes Record-Setting $11B Profit

(CBS/ AP)  Exxon Mobil Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding an after-tax charge of $290 million related to an Exxon Valdez court settlement, earnings amounted to $11.97 billion, or $2.27 per share.

Analysts on average expected Exxon Mobil to earn $2.52 a share on revenue of $144 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial. The estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The record-setting results were largely expected, given that crude prices in the second quarter were nearly double what they were a year ago. Natural gas prices were significantly higher too.

But investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe's Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings to $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon's own record earnings from 2007.

Exxon Mobil shares fell $2.24, or 2.6 percent, to $82.14 in morning trading.

The news on Exxon came as a slight boost in the U.S. economy in the second quarter was reported by the Commerce Department. The government tax rebates energized U.S. consumers, pushing gross domestic product, or GDP, to an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the April-to-June period. That marked an improvement over the feeble 0.9 percent growth logged in the first quarter of this year and an outright contraction in the economy during the final quarter of last year.

Setting U.S. profit records has become commonplace for Irving-based Exxon Mobil. The $11.68 billion topped its own U.S. record of $11.66 billion, posted in the fourth quarter of last year. Right behind that was the $10.9 billion it reported to start 2008.

Exxon Mobil owns the record for at least the top six most-profitable quarters for a U.S. company, as well as the largest annual profit.

The company, which produces 3 percent of the world's oil, got its biggest boost from its exploration and production arm, where earnings rose 68 percent to $10.01 billion from $5.95 billion a year ago. The main driver was record crude prices, partially offset by lower sales volumes and higher operating costs.

Once again, Exxon Mobil's results revealed a troubling trend at the heart of its business.

Production on an oil-equivalent basis fell 8 percent from a year ago - a significant blow for a company that generates more than two-thirds of its earnings from oil and gas production. That follows an opening quarter of 2008 when the company said overall production fell 5.6 percent from a year ago.

Excluding last year's loss of its Venezuelan assets, a labor strike in Nigeria and lower volumes because of production-sharing contracts, Exxon said production was down about 3 percent in the most-recent quarter.

Like its competitors, Exxon Mobil said it took a beating from lower global refining margins. Earnings from refining and marketing fell 54 percent in the quarter to $1.55 billion.

For the first six months of 2008, Exxon Mobil said it earned $22.57 billion, or $4.25 a share, from $19.54 billion, or $3.45 a share, in the first half of 2007. Revenue rose to $254.9 billion from $185.5 billion.

[richrider]

This past quarter, ExxonMobil''s "fat profit" is anything but %u2013 about 8.5 cents per dollar of sales. But the company DID pay a fat tax bill. Actually, customers paid that bill.

On a worldwide basis, in the 2nd 2008 quarter, ExxonMobil paid over $10 billion in corporate income taxes in the second quarter alone, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over $12 billion in other taxes.

In other words, ExxonMobil paid (or at least collected) $32.361 billion in taxes in the second quarter. Or to look at it another way - Exxon paid (or collected) almost $3 in taxes ($32.361 billion) for every $1 in profits ($11.68 billion).

That means that for every dollar in Exxon sales %u2013 not profits, SALES -- 23.4 cents is for taxes. And that is averaged over all types of sales %u2013 not just gasoline.

If the government chooses to nationalize Exxon (and the other oil companies) and take all their profit (reducing the stocks to zero value -- devastating pension funds nationwide), and if we make the outlandish assumption that a government oil company will run as efficiently as Exxon runs now, the price of $4 gas would drop all of 34 cents a gallon. Meantime, government taxes exceed 94 cents a gallon.

For those who wish to verify Exxon taxes, here''s a URL for the company''s quarterly earnings statement:
http://***********/5rnmyc

[richrider]

This past quarter, ExxonMobil''s "fat profit" is anything but %u2013 about 8.5 cents per dollar of sales. But the company DID pay a fat tax bill. Actually, customers paid that bill.

On a worldwide basis, in the 2nd 2008 quarter, ExxonMobil paid over $10 billion in corporate income taxes in the second quarter alone, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over $12 billion in other taxes.

In other words, ExxonMobil paid (or at least collected) $32.361 billion in taxes in the second quarter. Or to look at it another way - Exxon paid (or collected) almost $3 in taxes ($32.361 billion) for every $1 in profits ($11.68 billion).

That means that for every dollar in Exxon sales %u2013 not profits, SALES -- 23.4 cents is for taxes. And that is averaged over all types of sales %u2013 not just gasoline.

If the government chooses to nationalize Exxon (and the other oil companies) and take all their profit (reducing the stocks to zero value -- devastating pension funds nationwide), and if we make the outlandish assumption that a government oil company will run as efficiently as Exxon runs now, the price of $4 gas would drop all of 34 cents a gallon. Meantime, government taxes exceed 94 cents a gallon.

For those who wish to verify Exxon taxes, here''s a URL for the company''s quarterly earnings statement:
http://***********/5rnmyc

[richrider]

This past quarter, ExxonMobil''s "fat profit" is anything but %u2013 about 8.5 cents per dollar of sales. But the company DID pay a fat tax bill. Actually, customers paid that bill.

On a worldwide basis, in the 2nd 2008 quarter, ExxonMobil paid over $10 billion in corporate income taxes in the second quarter alone, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over $12 billion in other taxes.

In other words, ExxonMobil paid (or at least collected) $32.361 billion in taxes in the second quarter. Or to look at it another way - Exxon paid (or collected) almost $3 in taxes ($32.361 billion) for every $1 in profits ($11.68 billion).

That means that for every dollar in Exxon sales %u2013 not profits, SALES -- 23.4 cents is for taxes. And that is averaged over all types of sales %u2013 not just gasoline.

If the government chooses to nationalize Exxon (and the other oil companies) and take all their profit (reducing the stocks to zero value -- devastating pension funds nationwide), and if we make the outlandish assumption that a government oil company will run as efficiently as Exxon runs now, the price of $4 gas would drop all of 34 cents a gallon. Meantime, government taxes exceed 94 cents a gallon.

For those who wish to verify Exxon taxes, here''s a URL for the company''s quarterly earnings statement:
http://***********/5rnmyc

[scathingfact]

What about the fvcking $26,718,000,000.00 in free tax money the government gets each year from taxing the gasoline YOU are buying to put in your cars?

146 billion gallons of gasoline sold a year times the 18.3 cents per gallon federal tax. Do the math.

Let''s blame the real criminals here. Congress and their tax everything til it bleeds to death syndrome.

And the black messiah Hussein Obama wants to take another $1,000 per taxpayer away from the oil companies to ''bribe'' voters. And how will the oil comapanies make up that loss? Eventually, you''ll pay higher gas prices, courtest of the Democrat Party.


Just do the math people. Don''t be mindless sheep, bleating the Democrat mantra anymore.

[voltaire333]

Gee, I wish there was something we could do to reward the fat, lazy, stupid oil companies! If only they had some incentive to be for fat, lazy, and stupid! Hmm, I guess we''ll just have to keep giving them billions of dollars in profits if we really want them to stay, fat, lazy and stupid, adding no value whatsoever to the world economy, but just sucking like a disgust filthy leech.

[cheetah-man7]

Boy, am I ever glad I stopped using Exxon Mobil and cut up their credit card. No more of my money to THEM! So there ! (sticking out tongue !)

[ofbyfor1]

Can you beleive that this guy could be president?
SHEESH!! Wake up americans!

NOBAMA 08!!!

Posted by GSLINGER3 at 08:10 AM : Aug 01, 2008

Funny, I Googled that quote (and even just parts of it) and it didn''t come up at all. Considering that you didn''t provide a link to back up your statement, I would have to call you a LIAR! Oops! Your bad!

[obama441]

TERMINATED,with a stroke of a pen Schwarzenegger signs an executive order to laid off thousands of state workers....

[gslinger3]

The words of Barak Obama! This is no lie he said it just Yesterday

"We don''t need to be drilling for more oil, americans need to learn to put air in your tires and get you car tuned up, we can save just as much gas this way"

Can you beleive that this guy could be president?
SHEESH!! Wake up americans!

NOBAMA 08!!!

[imprisonkarl]

Let''s see . . . 8 years of Cheney & Bush . . . 8 years of record profits for Big Oil . . .

Yeah, just follow the money.