Exxon Mobil Posts 2nd-Highest Profit Ever; $10.49 Billion Seen As Possible Peak
Buoyed by high petroleum prices and an increase in production, oil industry colossus Exxon Mobil Corp. yesterday reported that its third-quarter earnings rose to $10.49 billion, putting the company on track to break the record it already holds for annual corporate profits.</br></br>The results marked a 6 percent increase from the third quarter of last year, thanks largely to the average $65.14 a barrel it received for the roughly 2.5 million barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids it produces every day.</br></br>That average was about the same as in the second quarter of this year but still up $7.12 from the third quarter of 2005, when prices spiked after Hurricane Katrina.</br></br>"It was a tremendous quarter," said Jacques Rousseau, oil analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co. The quarterly profit was the second-highest in U.S. corporate history -- after Exxon Mobil's fourth quarter last year. Excluding one-time gains that boosted the fourth-quarter results, the quarter just ended was even more profitable.</br></br>Analysts said, however, that the latest quarter could also mark a peak in the oil giants' profits if crude oil prices begin to ease. Many speculators and members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries fear that the three-month slide in oil prices will continue. For now, though, oil prices remain high, closing yesterday at $60.36 a barrel.