Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell reported a 22-percent jump in net profit on Thursday to $8.45 billion (6.40 billion euros) in the third quarter when oil prices hit record heights. Net earnings on a current cost of supply (CCS) basis, excluding fluctuations in the value of inventories, rocketed 71 percent to $10.9 billion in the three months to September, compared with the same period of 2007. US oil giant ExxonMobil shook off economic troubles and hurricanes to post a third-quarter profit of $14.83 billion, the company said Thursday. The latest report pushed up profits for the first nine months of 2008 to $37.4 billion, putting the biggest oil and gas company toward another record year for earnings. The results translated to a profit of $2.86 per share, or $2.59 excluding special items, ahead of market expectations of $2.39. Revenues in the July-September period jumped 34 percent to $13.73 billion. World oil prices blazed a record-breaking trail in the third quarter to strike all-time pinnacles above $147 per barrel in July on tense supply concerns. Shell added on Thursday that production fell 6.6 percent in the third quarter of the year to 2.931 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. That was the largest year-on-year production decline since the second quarter of 2006. Output was hit by hurricane damage to facilities in the Gulf of Mexico and maintenance work in the North Sea.
