Record Profits For Exxon 10.7 B

[sprucemoose3311]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2006-01-30T163413Z_01_WAA000163_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-EXXON-EARNS.xml&rpc=23

"Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, on Monday reported a quarterly profit of $10.7 billion, capping a year of record earnings dominated by surging oil and gas prices.

The results pushed up Exxon's profit for the year to a staggering $36.13 billion -- bigger than the economies of 125 of the 184 countries ranked by the World Bank. Profit rose 42 percent from 2004."

[Peter Triggs]

What are they doing with it all? They're not exactly generous with their dividends:

Div & Yield: $1.28 (2.10%)

[Sava]

surging gas prices...

record profits...

COINCIDENCE???


I THINK NOT

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
What are they doing with it all? They're not exactly generous with their dividends:

Senators, congressmen, and presidents aren't cheap, ya know, even with a volume discount.

[Az]

Originally posted by Sava
surging gas prices...

record profits...

COINCIDENCE???


I THINK NOT

[Asher]

What are they doing with it all?

Part of it goes to employee profit sharing.
Part of it goes to performance bonuses for employees.
Part of it goes to funding new developments (Tens of billions of dollars at a time are going into Alberta Oilsands developments).
The rest of it goes into rainy day funds.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
What are they doing with it all? They're not exactly generous with their dividends

Good, maybe it means the money is going somewhere useful, instead of being wasted in shareholders

[Skanky Burns]

The shareholders own the money, whether it is paid out as dividends or not.

[Fake Boris]

Where was all our compassion a few years ago when oil shares' prices were dwindling and general demand low?

[alva]

They need compassion?

BTW, what do you mean;" demand was low"?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

he he 36bn profit now that is a tidy sum, that will show IT industry who is the boss ...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asher

Part of it goes to employee profit sharing.
Part of it goes to performance bonuses for employees.
Part of it goes to funding new developments (Tens of billions of dollars at a time are going into Alberta Oilsands developments).
The rest of it goes into rainy day funds.

As well their Imperial brand in Canada (Exxon controlled although publicly traded) is spending a lot of money as proponent of the Mackenzie valley pipeline. They are currently saying they won't build an upgrader on northern Alberta now.

Just look at the dollars involved!!! It is pretty easy to find a place to spend 10 billion

Imperial Oil Won't Build New Upgrader for Oilsands Project

By James Stevenson
06 Dec 2005 at 04:26 PM EST


CALGARY (CP) -- Canada's largest oil and gas company has decided against building a new upgrader for the first stage of its new oilsands mega-project in northern Alberta, using its existing refineries instead to handle the majority of new production.

Imperial Oil said Tuesday that it would rather not join the long line of multi-billion dollar upgraders slated for construction in the Fort McMurray region where ''somebody's going to get hurt'' in the future due to rapidly escalating costs and the cyclical nature of energy prices.




''We're short of people and we're short of infrastructure, and the result is that we're getting really, really high inflation and very high costs and that's not really the best outcome for any of us,'' chief executive Tim Hearn said of northern Alberta.

''As a lot of these investments come on stream over time and there's surplus capacity, bad things happen,'' he said.

''There's a lot of pain occurred and I would rather not put our company or our people or our shareholders through that if I can find a different path forward.''

Earlier this year, Imperial [TSX:IMO; AMEX:IMO] and sister company ExxonMobil Canada filed for regulatory approval of its proposed C$6.5 billion Kearl oilsands mine.

The plans call for production of 300,000 barrels per day over three stages.

Speaking to analysts at the company's annual investors day, Hearn said Imperial's existing refineries across Canada could handle about two-thirds of production from the first phase.

A plan to handle production from phases two and three has yet to be finalized, but could involve expanding the existing refineries in Sarnia, Ont., and in Edmonton or shipping the bitumen to other existing refineries in North America.

Imperial is also talking to a variety of pipeline companies proposing new lines to take Canadian oilsands crude to markets in the U.S. Midwest, the Gulf Coast and on the West Coast.

Nearly all the major energy companies involved in the Canadian oilpatch have oilsands projects planned over the next decade.

At least four, including the C$10-billion Horizon project currently under construction by Canadian Natural Resources [TSX:CNQ], plan to build upgraders on-site in northern Alberta.

Imperial is no stranger to cost overruns in the oilsands as the second-largest owner of the Syncrude Canada joint-venture.

Syncrude's Stage Three expansion, slated to be completed by early next year, has more than doubled in cost during construction from original forecasts of C$4.1 billion to a current pricetag of C$8.3 billion.

Though it trades publicly in Canada, Imperial is nearly 70% owned by Texas-based ExxonMobil.

In afternoon trading on the Toronto stock market, Imperial shares were up C$3.49 or more than 3% to C$115.99.

© The Canadian Press 2005

[Flubber]

More generally, these profits cannot be surprising. Its pretty basic . . If your primary product experiences a price spike, you make more money. Any questions?

Thankfully, the mild winter in North America has held the line on natural gas prices. Apparently soemthing like 16% of pre-Katrina production is still shut in so a cold winter could have seen very high home heating costs. But natural gas stockpiles remain healthy and given that we are almost into February, there is little reason to expect a natural gas spike any more

[Asher]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
he he 36bn profit now that is a tidy sum, that will show IT industry who is the boss ...

There are fewer oil companies than IT companies, which means there's more money to be made by a smaller number of organizations...especially when prices are high.

That said, the IT history gets a boost by such performance. The energy industry is one of the best IT customers, they buy all kinds of fancy software and hardware regularly.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asher

There are fewer oil companies than IT companies, which means there's more money to be made by a smaller number of organizations...especially when prices are high.

I doubt there are more "companies"-- For example EnCana Corporation has a structure that includes about 150 companies and many little juniors with less than 1000 boe a day will have 10-15 "companies"

So I don't think "number of companies" means much of anything. But even if you only count separate entities, there are hundreds of oil and gas "enterprises" operating in Alberta alone