Exxon Mobil posts largest quarterly profit ever
IRVING, Texas - High prices for oil and natural gas propelled Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC to their best quarterly results ever on Thursday, with Exxon becoming the first U.S. company ever to ring up quarterly sales of $100 billion.
To put Exxon’s performance into perspective, its third quarter revenue was greater than the annual gross domestic product of some of the largest oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The world’s largest publicly traded oil company also set a U.S. profit record with net income of almost $10 billion, according to Standard & Poor’s equity market analyst Howard Silverblatt.
4 comments:
Wait a minute! Hasn't the media been telling us that the cost of gas went up due to oil cost going up. If their costs are going up then how are they making so much of a profit? Sounds to me like some price gauging has been happenning.
Hrm....
I'm not entirely sure this is unexpected or a sign that more price gouging went on than is usual during Katrina. We were informed that gasoline prices went up before supply became an issue in anticipation of a shortage, AND we know that the federal government subsidizes companies such as Exxon with massive tax breaks to keep the prices low.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501655_2.html
So why are you disgusted by this?
Jon
It's just that when a company is making a record profit, it means they're selling a lot more, introducing great new products, becoming extra efficient, or are raping the customer.
In this case, it ain't the first three.
It seems to me that the lion's share of the blame should be assigned to the federal government for subsidizing them, then. We give them massive tax breaks in order to keep the price low at the pump. Apparently, all that does is line the company's coffers.
Jon
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