Exxon Profit at 2003-04 Levels ‘Shows What Normal Looks Like,’ Says Consumer Group
Santa Monica, CA — Exxon Mobil’s first quarter profit of $4.55 billion
dollars is small only by comparison to the last six years of nearly
continuous profit records, said Consumer Watchdog. Its first quarter
profit is more than $1 billion above what it made for the period in
2003 and about the same amount below its profit in 2004, the first two
years of a boom that lasted until the current quarter.
(See yearly and quarterly profits for the five major integrated oil companies at OilWatchdog’s "Oil Profits Monster" Database.)
“The stock market may not like lower Exxon profits, but they only
show what normal looks like,” said Judy Dugan of the nonprofit,
nonpartisan Consumer Watchdog. “Consumers whose wallets have been
drained at the pump, and businesses left deep in debt by high fuel and
energy prices, can only hope for continued relief.”
It is notable that Exxon’s profits on refining (downstream)
operations were nearly equal to last year’s, meaning that its
percentage profit per gallon at the pump was higher, said Consumer
Watchdog. Consumers are still providing a lopsided portion of Exxon’s
profit at the pump.
Exxon is also still buying back billions of dollars worth of its own
stock, essentially filling a piggy bank many times larger than its $25
billion of cash on hand would indicate. Its $7 billion buyback in the
first quarter and planned $5 billion 2nd quarter buyback continues an
unproductive use of money, said Consumer Watchdog.
Its investments in renewable energy remain essentially nil.
“Exxon seeks to persuade investors that its oil-and-only-oil way of
doing business is conservative and safe,” said Dugan. “Yet with a
low-carbon future becoming a reality, Exxon refuses to be part of the
solution by spending some of its hoarded billions to make that future
cleaner and cheaper. The difference between Exxon and a buggy-whip
manufacturer in 1909 is that buggy-whip factories didn’t pollute the
world.”
Consumer Watchdog has backed proposals to eliminate taxpayer
subsidies for major oil companies, including a White House proposal to
tax oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico to compensate for oil royalty
relief mistakenly granted in federal contracts in the late 1990s.
Today’s lower profits are no reason to continue those and other
subsidies, including offshore profit schemes, said Consumer Watchdog,
because the oil companies remain awash in cash in comparison to other
major industries.
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www.ConsumerWatchdog.org