ExxonMobil 4Q profit up 53% to $9.3BILLION

By Chris Kahn, AP Energy Writer
Updated 2h 9m ago

NEW YORK — ExxonMobil earned $9.25 billion in the last three months of 2010, its most profitable quarter since the record third quarter of 2008.

The largest publicly traded oil company said Monday that net income grew 53% in the fourth quarter as it produced more oil to take advantage of higher prices.

READ: ExxonMobil's earnings release
Net income was $1.85 a share. In the year-ago quarter, Exxon (XOM) earned $6.05 billion, or $1.27 a share. Exxon set a record for quarterly net income by a publicly traded company of $14.83 billion in the July-September period in 2008.

Revenue increased 17% to $105 billion.

The results beat Wall Street expectations of $1.62 a share on revenue of $99.1 billion, according to FactSet.

Oil companies' profits surged in the fourth quarter as the world consumed more petroleum and oil prices rose 12% to an average of $85.14 a barrel. Higher prices made production operations more profitable. Increased demand boosted margins at refineries.

Exxon cranked up production 19%. Its Exploration and production operations posted income of $1.3 billion in the U.S. and $6.2 billion internationally. Downstream operations, which include refineries, reported earnings of $1.2 billion after losing money a year ago. And Exxon's chemicals business reported profit of $1.1 billion.

Read more on XOM at Last week, Chevron said net income soared 72% to $5.3 billion for the quarter while ConocoPhillips reported a 54% jump. BP reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday and Royal Dutch Shell releases its report Thursday.

For the full year, ExxonMobil said it earned $30.5 billion, or $6.22 a share, compared with $19.3 billion, or $3.98 a share, in 2009. Annual revenue increased 32% to $383 billion.

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