Exxon Mobil Posts 10 Pct Decline in 3rd-Qtr, Hurt by Lower Refinery Margins

Do you believe this? Somehow I in my suspicious mind about the oil companies feel there has been some playing with numbers especially now that the Supreme Court is going to hear the Valdez case against them.

HOUSTON (AP) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday its profit fell 10 percent in the third quarter from a year ago as the company was hurt by lower refining and chemical margins.

The profit was below expectations of Wall Street analysts, and the energy company's shares fell 2 percent in premarket trading.

Exxon Mobil said net income declined to $9.41 billion, or $1.70 per share, in the July-September period from $10.49 billion, or $1.77 per share, a year ago.

Its profit in the third quarter of 2006 was the second-largest ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.

Revenue at the Irving, Texas-based company rose to $102.3 billion from $99.59 billion in the third quarter of 2006.

On average, analysts expected the company to earn $1.75 per share in the latest quarter on revenue of $112.97 billion.

Its shares fell $1.85 to $90.14 in premarket trading Thursday.

Exxon Mobil, which produces 3 percent of the world's oil, said earnings from its exploration and production arm fell about 3 percent in the most-recent period, to $6.29 billion from $6.49 billion a year ago. The drop largely reflects lower natural gas prices and higher operating costs, which were mostly offset by higher realized crude oil prices.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071101/earns_exxon_mobil.html

They made $10.4 billion in profit in the 3rd quarter of 2006.

They made $9.4 billion in profit in the 3rd quarter of 2007.

Their revenue (sales) still increased, to over $100 billion for the quarter.

They still made $9.4 billion in profit for just a three month period. There are only about 250 corporations in the whole country that had $9.4 billion in revenue (sales) for the entire year - yet, ExxonMobil makes that in profit for 3 months.

expected profit. Market down over 200 points.

When we're talking about $400 billion in gross revenues, we're talking about an entire country ... not just some company. Sweden, Switzerland, Indonesia, Belgium, Poland ... all have GDPs lower than $400 billion.

That's not just LARGE ... that's the size of a whole country.

do not buy from them. Perhaps it made an impact... Probably, they are cooking the books.

I try to avoid them whenever I can, and try to use Citgo... but sometimes using a Mobil station is unavoidable.

they would have to lower prices and competitors would be forced to go down too....