The total year end profit for ExxonMobil was about $36 billion.
This morning in the Houston Chronicle, the same day the news was announced of total year end profits, ExxonMobil took out an entire backpage add to
explain why its profit margins are so high.
They claimed that the volume of the industry is very large (40k barrels of oil consumed per second around the world, 8000k per day) compared to other
industries such as pharmecutical, transportation, food&beverage, etc.
They compared the profits in cents per dollar in which the Oil&Gas industries (8.2 cents per dollar) ranked just above the average of all industries
(6.8 cents per dollar), pharmecuticals (18.5 cents per dolalr) ranked the highest and transportation (.2 cents per dollar) the lowest of about a dozen
and a half total industries.
The source of the information is sited as a company filling as reported by Oil Daily for the oil and natural gas industry, and by
Pricewaterhouse-Coopers LLP from data compiled by S&P's Compustat for all other industries.
In fact I couldn't find a websource so here is most of the article if you are interested, I find it fun to read.
Taking a second look
Energy industry earnings are high , but our profit margins are in step with other industries. How can that be? Because the scale of our industry is
enormous.
Looking at the latest earnings figures for
the energy industry, you might think our
profit margins can't be beat. But looks
can be deceiving.
The energy industry had a good year,
to be sure. For example, ExxonMobil's
earnings for 2005 set a record, which is
good news for (investors and workers alike)...yadda yadda yadda...
Our industry's profit margins, however,
are comparable with the nation average.
For every follar of sales, the oil and natural
gas industry earned 8.2 cents on average
during the third quater (average of all major industries in US was 6.8 cents during the same time)....
The reason our earnings top many
other industries' but our profit margins do
not comes down to two words: revenues
and costs.
Energy is produced and sold in tremendous quantities (what I stated above)...
Cost effeciencies of $1 billion....
Neverthless, during the first 9 months
of last year, we incurred $229 billion in
expenses. More than $1k per
American adult and more than the Fed
spends on Medicare costs
nationwide during that same period.
Costs include taxes. In 2004, [we]
paid more in income taxes and other taxes in
the United States than we earned here. Our
total federal and state tax expense in 04
was $11.8 billion, compared to earnings
of $8.2 abillion from our US operations.
**My favorite part**
So are the energy companies' profits disproportionately high? It's worth a second look.
.......
Yes, people. Please, take a second look.
[edit on 30-1-2006 by Frosty]