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ExxonMobil gets 58% growth in net profit

01 February 2011 08:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA-Economics. Irving-based oil and gas titan Exxon Mobil, boosted by rising crude-oil prices, on Monday reported fourth-quarter net income of $9.25 billion, or $1.85 a share, on revenue of $105 billion, Fort Worth Star Telegram reported.

Earnings showed a 53 percent gain over net income of $6.05 billion, or $1.27 a share, in the year-ago period. It was Exxon’s most-profitable quarter since the third quarter of 2008, when the company posted net income of more than $14.8 billion, the highest quarterly profit ever for a publicly traded company. Crude-oil and natural gas prices peaked at the start of that quarter before beginning a rapid decline.

Exxon’s production was up 19 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, as the company sought to take advantage of higher oil prices.

Quarterly profit at XTO Energy, its Fort Worth-based subsidiary acquired last year, fell to $120 million, a 78 percent decline, said David Rosenthal, Exxon’s vice president of investor relations. However, Exxon officials, from CEO Rex Tillerson on down, have expressed long-term optimism about the company’s purchase of XTO, a highly successful natural gas producer in unconventional gas fields such as North Texas’ Barnett Shale.

Exxon forecast last week that natural gas will surpass coal as the world’s No. 2 energy source by 2030 because it is a cleaner-burning fuel that will increasingly be used to generate power.

Exxon said its fourth-quarter natural gas production soared to an average of 12.1 billion cubic feet per day, a 31 percent gain from the year-ago period. It attributed the gain in part to additional unconventional U.S. gas production from the XTO purchase, and the acquisition of Petrohawk Energy properties in the Fayetteville Shale, which are "providing an attractive addition to XTO’s existing position" in the Arkansas gas field.

Exxon said gas production also rose as projects ramped up in Qatar.

For all of 2010, Exxon earned $30.5 billion, or $6.22 per share, compared with $19.3 billion, or $3.98 per share, in 2009. Annual revenue rose 32 percent to $383 billion. Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 17 percent over a year earlier.

Exxon’s exploration and production operations posted fourth-quarter profits of $1.3 billion in the U.S. and $6.2 billion globally.

Exxon stock (ticker: XOM) closed Monday at $80.68 a share, up $1.69.