The oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. reported the largest annual profit of any American company in history, amounting to $39.5 billion. The profit for 2006 thus surpassed the previous record, also set by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion in 2005.
Record profit shows that Exxon earns approximately $4.5 million per hour. This income is also equivalent to the average annual gross domestic product of countries such as Ecuador, Luxembourg, and Croatia. Equally astonishing is Exxon Mobil’s revenue, which climbed to $377.64 billion in 2006, exceeding the record of $370.68 billion in 2005. The company holds the largest retail sales of petroleum products in the world and produces about three percent of the world’s oil.
Exxon Mobil’s record annual earnings, a company headquartered in Irving, Texas, were recorded in a year with extraordinarily high energy prices, with crude oil prices exceeding $78 per barrel during the summer, which raised gasoline prices in the U.S. to over three
dollars per gallon. (H)
