anybody else feeling the crunch?

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Andrew Holley

Well-known member
Exxon earnings soar on record oil prices
Friday February 1, 8:29 am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM - News) said on Friday record oil prices boosted its fourth-quarter earnings to $11.66 billion, the highest ever operating profit by a U.S. company.
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Shares of the world's largest non-government-controlled oil company rose 1.7 percent in before-the-bell trading as the results beat Wall Street forecasts.
Net income rose nearly 14 percent from the year-earlier of $10.25 billion.

Earnings per share rose to $2.13 from $1.76 last year. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $1.98 per share.
"They performed across the board, upstream, downstream, U.S. and foreign," said James Halloran, who helps manage about $35 billion at National City Private Client Group.
Revenue in the quarter rose to $116.64 billion from $90.03 billion in 2006.
Oil prices averaged more than $90 a barrel during the quarter and nearly hit $100 due to tight supplies, geopolitical risks and the weak dollar. They averaged just over $60 a barrel in the same period a year earlier.
Profit margins from refining were relatively weak in the quarter as gasoline prices failed to keep pace with oil prices that soared to record levels.
Since the beginning of last year, shares of Exxon are up about 13 percent, underperforming the Chicago Board Options Exchange's oil index, which is up about 21 percent.
(Reporting by Michael Erman, editing by Dave Zimmerman


Wish my net income would have gone up 14%. Somehow I just feel I am being screwed for every penny I have.
 
Buy Exxon stock, I did. That way you can get some money back.
I see people all the time complain about gas at $2.84 but pay $2.00 for
a bottle of water.
 
I would have bought some but I needed gas to get to work. I won't pull into an EXXON station unless the truck is sucking fumes and I am out in the middle of nowhere. Noriega can go pound sand.
 
Yes, Andrew, I feel it as well. I actually found myself driving my wife's minivan around for scouting for birds instead of my truck this fall. Might have saved on some gas $$..
But I haven't put a trailer hitch on it yet...

I also read a recent story about upcoming shortages of certain additives etc.., so the oil PR machine is priming us for another price increase, warning that shortages may increase prices this summer...
I avoid the Citgo stations, because Chavez can go pound sand..(as Lee put it)
Dave
 
Andrew,

I'm even thinking of trading my jeep wrangler gas guzzler! 18 miles per gallon ain't cuttin it. Thinking of trading.....

smart_monster_car7.jpg
 
Yep, it's tough to take when filling up the truck costs $50-60.00.
But, one thing to remember is that Exxon-Mobil doesn't set crude oil prices, that crazy bunch of unkown people that make up "the markets" set them based on thier assumptions, calculations & (recently imo), their irrational fears about un realized "geopolitical risks ".
Believe, me, all the oil & gas companies in this country are pumping oil out of thr ground as fast as they can & making as much refined products as they can. At the current oil prices, they are are also paying a lot for the oil they use but don't produce.

Of course they are also making a ton of money too. But this is a double edged sword for them that may catch up to them soon. My understanding is that the profit margins for all refined products are & have been tightning. Sooner or later, their profit margins are not going to keep up and these record profits will cease.

Natural gas prices have been under similar pressure due to supply out stripping demand. It's a shame that certain states, such as Florida and the east coast states are sitting on huge offshore gas deposits of natural gas (in federal waters) and won't allow production. Natural gas production has none of the env. hazards of oil production and it's a lot cleaner to produce & burn.
 
I did put a trailer hitch on my wife's minivan a couple of years ago. My truck is over $100 to fill at $5 a gallon here. The van works great in most places. More secure at the launch than my truck cap as well. It a '96 though and I doubt we'll ever get the smell of wet dog out of it now. Actauly, the more dings and scratches it gets the better I like it. I wonder where can I get a winch bumper for a '96 Montana?

Mike
 
But will it revolutionize minivan culture?

Did you really make a dog ladder out of a folding lawn chair? I'd like to see that.

Mike
 
I did. I will try to take some pics of it tomorrow and post. I lost the old ones in a computer upgrade.

The starter chair was one of those old folding aluminum jobs. I cut and put a piece of painted plywood on the back, took off the front leg and shortened the back leg to act as a support against the boat. It works great, folds for storage in the boat, doesn't rust and is light weight. Wait a minute here, now that I think about it, I might have to have you sign a confidentiality agreement to see the pics!
 
For some strange reason the prices in Anchorage have been fairly stable and a little less than the national prices, which was not the case two years ago. Nothing has changed since then other than a loud public outcry.

The oil companies don't make any serious amount of money off their retail sales, so the margins can go negative for all they care. This is also why a lot of them are selling off the retail stores that do not have positive margins. The oil companies are making their huge profits on the raw material they pump out. Their infrastructure was paid for twenty years ago so their overhead on that segment is really small these days.

Systems like the North Slope Alyeska Pipeline up here are in significant decline (pumping 750,000 barrels/day now when it used to be nearly 2 million) and the numbers are well below what they were complaining about in the late 1980's when oil was less than $20/barrel. If I remember correctly it was stated that the Alyeska system would have to be shut down if they could not pump over a million barrels per day. These days nobody is talking about shutting down the pipeline and BP and Conoco/Philips are pumping lots of "do gooder" cash into the local community projects.
 
I agree with you Carl that they aren't setting the crude oil price, and I understand that price changes, however if they are making more money that last year, they have increased their margin. Before they were making X amount per barrel, now they are making X plus some extra. That is what is ticking me off.
 
I agree with you Carl that they aren't setting the crude oil price, and I understand that price changes, however if they are making more money that last year, they have increased their margin. Before they were making X amount per barrel, now they are making X plus some extra. That is what is ticking me off.
Click to expand...

The reason that they are making more money now then last year is that they don't make X amount per barrel. They make X amount per dollar invested. There profit margins are not as large as many other businesses but they put the most money into making more money.
Google's profits went up 17% to just under $4 a share, and the 'market' thinks they are hurting.

Tim
 
Sulfer Content.....or expanded just slightly....the diesel fuels of old are not the diesel fuels of today....they are now more highly refined and that makes them more expensive.....

Steve
 
but then thats the nature of, "free enterprise", "supply and demand", "market adjustment", "Global unrest", etc., etc......and for sure the "end" of the run up isn't in site much less "just over the horizon"....

SPecifically though my point was that you can't compare prices of "diesel then to now" becasue the product isn't the same....if you do that then you just feel "more violated" than you actually are.....

Steve
 
I bought a chunk of ExxonMobil stock three years ago and it has doubled in value. I wish all my investments did as well.
 
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