Exxon Mobil Posts Highest Profit In Company History
Good Grief.
Exxon
Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, on
Thursday said quarterly profit surged 75 percent to nearly $10 billion,
raking in a bonanza from record oil prices.
The
profit was the highest in the company's history, surpassing the record
it set in the 2004 fourth quarter. Revenue jumped 32 percent to just
over $100 billion.
For some reason, the standard “supply and demand” argument seems to wear a little thin.
Something to note: the big reason for higher gas prices lately
has been “lack of refining capacity”, to the point of the Bush
administration wants to make refinery construction “easier”:
“It
ought to be clear to everybody that this country needs to build more
refining capacity to be able to deal with the issues of tight supply,”
Bush said at a White House news conference. He pledged to support
legislation aimed at making it easier to expand refineries and build
new ones
Despite all of this supposed red tape – the cost of building a new refinery in Gary, Ind. clocked in at a profit-busting $100 million:
The
total construction cost of a refinery with a production capacity of
200,000 bbl/day in Gary, Indiana, completed in 2001 was $100 million.
It is proposed that a similar refinery with a production capacity of
300,000 bbl/day be built in Los Angeles, California, for completion in
2003. For the additional information given below, make an order of
magnitude estimate of the cost of the proposed plant.
So – for the “reasons” given for this high price crunch – can someone
do the math for me? What is $10 Billion minus $100 million?
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