Legacy of Exxon

Legacy of Exxon (2000)

Well, guess who's bigger than Wal-Mart and now outgrosses the economy of Saudi Arabia? From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Exxon said Monday that its fourth-quarter profit climbed 27 percent to $10.71 billion.

And with annual revenue of $371 billion -- an amount that exceeds Saudi Arabia's estimated gross domestic product in 2005 -- Exxon likely will dethrone Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from atop the Fortune 500 when it is released this spring. Wal-Mart, whose fiscal year runs through January, had $290.29 billion in revenue through December.

[...]

Exxon's results lifted the combined 2005 profits for the country's three largest integrated oil companies to more than $63 billion. ConocoPhillips said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 51 percent to $3.68 billion, and annual income climbed 66 percent to $13.53 billion. Two days later, Chevron Corp. said its fourth-quarter earnings rose 20 percent to $4.14 billion, while annual income jumped 6 percent to $14.1 billion.

[...]

For anyone stunned by the size of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $36.13 billion profit in 2005 -- the highest ever for a U.S. company -- some Wall Street analysts have a message: There's more to come."Unless (energy) prices collapse, earnings in 2006 will make 2005 look like a cakewalk," Oppenheimer & Co. oil analyst Fadel Gheit.

Just warms the planet your heart, doesn't it? Surely hauling in such booty bounty will have the corporation geyersing with philanthropic, civic-minded gratitude...

...or not. From MSNBC, just four days ago:

It’s been nearly 17 years since the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil along the Alaska coast in one of the country’s worst environmental disasters, and a jury’s $5 billion judgment against the company is still tied up in the courts.

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s appeal of that punishment was scheduled to be heard for the third time Friday afternoon in a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

[...]

In two previous appeals, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland of Anchorage to reduce the judgment against Exxon, saying it was unconstitutionally excessive.

Holland begrudgingly complied in 2002, reducing it to $4 billion. Exxon appealed, and Holland was ordered to revisit the decision again. He called Exxon’s actions “reprehensible,” and set the figure at $4.5 billion plus interest.

[...]

In the region itself, pockets of relatively fresh Exxon Valdez oil remain on shorelines as distant as Katmai National Park, about 300 miles from the site where the supertanker disgorged 11 million gallons of crude oil, according to government scientists who presented their studies at a conference this week in Anchorage.

“This stuff isn’t changing at all. It’s just the same kind of goo that got deposited there in 1989,” said Jeff Short, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric researcher.

According to the group that administers the settlement money paid by Exxon to the governments, only seven of 30 marine species, resources or services have recovered to pre-spill levels. Whether the spill is to blame and whether remnant oil is causing harm remains unsettled.

Exxon Gets Away with Murder (1990) by Sue Coe

And enjoy the ice while you can...

[Cartoon by Seppo Leinonen]

Perhaps, when the next presidential election rolls around, the American people should think long and hard about once again voting in many former oilmen to the highest offices in our government. Just a thought.

Oh, and in a related story, from five days ago, Halliburton chairman Dave Lesar noted that the company's 2005 profits were the "best in our 86-year history."

Culture of corruption? You bet. Fill 'er up...

~/~

But why just read blogs about Exxon when you can watch the movie?