ExxonMobil sets annual profit record: $40.6B

HOUSTON -- 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, besting its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which ExxonMobil reported for 2006.

The eye-popping results weren't a surprise given record prices for a barrel of oil at the end of 2007. For much of the fourth quarter, they hovered around $90 a barrel, more than 50% higher than a year ago.

Crude prices reached an all-time trading high of $100.09 on Jan. 3 but have fallen about 10% since.

The record profit for the October-December period amounted to $2.13 a share vs. $1.76 a share in 2006. Year-ago net income was $10.25 billion.

Also extraordinary was ExxonMobil's revenue, which rose 30% in the fourth quarter to $116.6 billion.

For the year, sales rose to $404.5 billion — the most ever for the company — from the $377.64 billion it posted in 2006.

In a statement, ExxonMobil Chairman Rex Tillerson said the company continued to meet the world's energy needs through its "globally diverse resource base."

"Our 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.

ExxonMobil produces about 3% of the world's oil.

Higher commodity prices in the quarter were clearly evident from earnings at ExxonMobil's exploration and production arm, known as upstream. Income rose 32% to $8.2 billion from $6.2 billion a year ago.

On an oil-equivalent basis, production increased nearly 1% from the fourth quarter 2006. Excluding the expropriation of its Venezuelan assets last year, divestments and other factors, production rose nearly 3%.