Exxon Mobil Corporation on Friday posted the largest annual profit by an American company. Exxon's profit victory is not surprising as it is the world's biggest publicly traded oil company. The company's $40.6 billion profit last year was also probably aided by the crude prices reaching a historic high by the end of 2007. For much of the fourth quarter of 2007, crude oil prices reached to around $90 a barrel, which is more than 50 percent higher than in 2006. Since the beginning of 2008, crude prices have fallen about 10 percent following the record high oil trading figures of $100.09 per barrel. Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005. The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil also made in 2006. Exxon Mobil's revenue also rose 30 percent in the fourth quarter to $116.6 billion from $90 billion a year ago. For the whole of 2007, sales rose to $404.5 billion, which is a record high for the company, whose previous high was $377.64 billion from 2006. Exxon, which produces about 3 percent of the world's oil continues to meet the world's energy needs through its “globally diverse resource base,” said the company's chairman, Rex Tillerson. “Our [Exxon's] long-term investment program, in projects often far from major consuming nations, continued to provide resources essential to the increasingly interdependent global energy supply network,” Tillerson said.
