ExxonMobil CEO Defends High Profits

ExxonMobil invested $12.5 billion, a record amount of capital into exploration expenditures, in the first half of 2008. But 55 percent of their profits go to stock buyback.

Chariman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson told ABC News' Charles Gibson that while the company earned the best quarterly profit ever for a corporation -- $11.7 billion -- it costs $1 billion per day simply to operate.

(Amy Conn_Gutierrez/ABC)
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"Where we need to be 20, 30, 50 years down the road is to continue to be the most efficient producer and most environmentally responsible producer of oil and natural gas, to develop the next generation -- which is not available today -- the next generation of replacement fuels for the future."

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