The world's largest company, ExxonMobil Corp., announced record third-quarter profits of $10.49 billion Oct. 26 on the back of red-hot oil prices. The Texas energy giant's latest income was the second-highest ever booked by a public U.S. company. It already holds the record for the highest quarterly profits, of $ 10.71 billion in the last quarter of 2005.
Net profits for the third quarter spiked 26% from $8.30 billion in the same period of 2005.
"Higher crude oil and natural gas realizations, and improved marketing and chemical margins, were partly offset by lower refining margins," ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson said.
ExxonMobil's profits amounted to a staggering $114 million a day for the quarter, largely as oil prices gushed to record heights. Its third-quarter income dwarfed the latest quarterly earnings of British energy group BP ($6.975 billion) and U.S. banking titan Citigroup ($5.5 billion). It made Google's earnings of $773 million look like pocket change.
The energy behemoth, forged out of the 1999 merger of Exxon and Mobil, straddles the globe with ownership interests in 45 refineries in 25 countries. It is the world's biggest company in terms of market capitalization, ahead of U.S. conglomerate General Electric.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
