Oil profits soar on high prices
Bloomberg News
IRVING, Texas -- Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Texaco, the biggest U.S. petroleum
companies, said third-quarter earnings surged to records as oil prices reached
nine-year highs.
Exxon Mobil said profit from operations almost doubled to $4.29 billion, the
highest quarterly earnings ever reported by a U.S. company. Profit at Chevron,
which last week agreed to buy Texaco for $45.4 billion in stock and assumed
debt, more than doubled to $1.65 billion. Texaco earnings climbed 80 percent to
$815 million. All three companies beat analysts' estimates.
U.S. oil prices topped $37 a barrel in September, the highest level since Iraq's
occupation of Kuwait in 1990, as output increases by producing nations weren't
enough to replenish falling inventories. Natural-gas production didn't keep up with
the demands of a booming U.S. economy, and gas rose above $5 a million British
thermal units for the first time.
``It's never happened before anytime in history that we had $35 oil and $5 gas,''
said Fadel Gheit, director of research at Fahnestock & Co. in New York.
Oil prices averaged $31.58 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, 45 percent
more than in the year-earlier period. Natural gas averaged $4.53, the highest
since gas began trading on the exchange a decade ago..................................................................................................................................................................................Let's hope that the oil companies pay their fair share of taxes like John Q Public. |
