Well a few days ago I predicted that ExxonMobil would post a new corporate record profit and become the world's largest corporation. I appears I was right on both counts. Wal-Mart's total came in just under $300 billion in FY2005 according to Wikipedia, and ExxonMobil managed to rake in about $371 billion, and set a record profit of just over $36 billion (just under ten percent, which is a whopper compared with Wal-Mart's sub-4% margin).

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/30/business/exxon.php

Good for them and their investors. Hope they do something useful with the money. Maybe the government will give them a tax break if they use it for alternative fuel research or to make more refineries?

What annoying news.

And just to add insult to injury, on Friday ExxonMobil asked for a $5 billion reduction in damage from the Exxon Valdez oil spill case in Alaska.

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257410_valdez28.html?source=rss

And just to add insult to injury' date=' on Friday ExxonMobil asked for a $5 billion reduction in damage from the Exxon Valdez oil spill case in Alaska.

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257410_valdez28.html?source=rss[/quote']

 

I do not see the issue here. These profits were earned legally. If anyone is is at fault it's the Chinese (and probably Google!).

 

The request to reduce the punitive damage award from $25B to $20B is a separate issue. Exxon is arguing that it has been deterred which is probably true.

Wow.

 

Freaks me out a little...

I may have commented on this in another thread (forgive me), but I saw an interesting news story the other day about how EM is contributing massive bumps to the 401ks and pension funds of millions of Americans.

 

I've also said here many times that oil prices are a commidity item. EM doesn't set them -- the market does. And everyone basically pays the same price (except the producing nations).

 

I think a valid question has arisen over this past year about inflated production margins. Transportation, refining, and so forth.

 

But when you look at the bottom line, EM's profit margin (~$36 bill on $360 bill sales) is roughly ten percent, which is really not out of line. It's bigger than Wal-Mart's (4%?) but only slightly higher than the Fortune 500 average (typically 7%). Some industries (health insurance anyone?) would even call that a bad year.