For big oil, 2008 has proven to be a very good year, and with industry giant ExxonMobil reporting earnings of $11.68 billion today — the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation — things continue to look up.
Royal Dutch Shell previously reported a 5 percent spike and a net income of $7.9 billion. Last year the combined sales of the top five oil companies added up to $1.5 trillion, which is greater than the gross domestic product of Canada.
Since then, crude prices have soared by as much as 50 percent. That combined with big paydays for oil companies has critics and consumers calling for more alternatives to foreign oil.
"We're working very hard to expand and diversify U.S. energy supply," BP American Inc. chairman and president Robert A. Malone told the Senate Judiciary Committee in May.
Even former oil man T. Boone Pickens has been pushing a wind-farm plan to curb the country's foreign oil dependence.
Yet Wall Street Access oil analyst Bernard Picchi said many big oil companies aren't using much of their profits to fund oil alternatives.
"While they are making an effort, odds are they spent more on their advertising, than the research," he said.
Comparing the top five oil companies, Exxon spent just 1 percent of its $41 billion in profits last year on alternative energy sources. Exxon has said publicly it's not in the renewable energy business, but rather focused on oil and gas.
BP invested the most in alternatives, but that still was only 2.9 percent of BP's profits — around $2 billion, Picchi said.
Some experts have argued that oil companies won't have incentive to change their policies until Washington changes its policies.
But Michael Santoli, of Barron's, said part of the backlash to large profits is a "visceral issue."
"I understand the emotional response. It seems as if they should be able to do more but these are long-term spending plans," he said on "Good Morning America" today. "I'll point out on a net basis overall Exxon Mobil makes less profit per dollar of sales than McDonald's or Coca-Cola makes."
Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.
