Good to know, thanks scott.
I wanted to go with the lower of the two.x a billion.
[QUOTE]Latest ratesPrices are slowly falling in NW Ohio. Cost per barrel is dropping and refining capacity has to be picking up. Prices at the station nearest me;
Unleaded Regular $2.47
Diesel $3.19
Unleaded Reg $2.43
Diesel $3.39 ? Regular is falling and diesel is skyrocketing...?
Haven't heard any major complaining from the truckers yet...someone's absorbing the costs...are fuel costs being passed on to the merchandise being trucked?
[QUOTE=jochhejaam]Trucks are three times as expensive (I forget whether this is in dollar terms or energy terms, I think energy) as trains.Latest rates
Unleaded Reg $2.43
Diesel $3.39 ? Regular is falling and diesel is skyrocketing...?
Haven't heard any major complaining from the truckers yet...someone's absorbing the costs...are fuel costs being passed on to the merchandise being trucked?
Just thought I would throw that random bit in for what it is worth.
Truckers have indeed been complaining. I would think that the massive uptick in diesel costs are due to refineries making gasoline over diesel.
The costs have so far been mostly aborbed by shipping companies, but these lastest increases will have to be passed on to the consuming public, as there is no more margin left to cut in most shipping companies bottom lines. That is my understanding of my reading of business journals.
I wonder if I can dig up my circa 2003 posts warning of impending inflation.
I used to work for a major shipper a few years ago as a dispatcher. I cordinated truck movements across the country.
Anyhow, they were ing then and diesel was less than half what it is today. You're absoultey nuts if you don't think any of them are ing now. Owner-Ops are probably going out of business faster than you can imagine and companies like Peterbuilt are probably suffering severely poor sales figures.
^^^hostile responseQuote=jochhejaam Haven't heard any major complaining from the truckers yet...someone's absorbing the costs...are fuel costs being passed on to the merchandise being trucked?
^^^measured intelligent dialogue responseQuote=RandomGuy: Truckers have indeed been complaining. I would think that the massive uptick in diesel costs are due to refineries making gasoline over diesel.
Manny, since you didn't include any quotes i'm not sure if you're addressing my post or if your "absolutely nuts" comment was a non-personal slam so I won't go into full defensive/attack response mode.
In my part of the country there has been zero media coverage about the truckers angst towards the high diesel prices. No wildcat strikes, no bottling up the interstates to protest the high costs, etc.
That being said I'm sure, as everyone with common sense would be, that the Trucking Industry isn't happy about the costs. (nor am I since the higher fuel costs will be in part passed on to the consumer)
On a brighter note, regular gas has dropped to $2.34 a gallon around here.
Who cares?
You must not be a car owner.
I am an owner of several automobiles but the price of fuel is the least of my worries.You must not be a car owner.
It was a general comment.
No time for trucker coverage when another white girl has gone missiong somewhere.
It was a general comment.
No time for trucker coverage when another white girl has gone missiong somewhere.
That explains it, I keep forgetting the news mediums propensity for sensationalism.
That explains it, I keep forgetting the news mediums propensity for sensationalism.
You and I may disagree on a lot, but not that.
Since the topic interested me, I did a little research and came up with this:
[Trucking] Industry facing serious issues, Graves tell ATA delegates
BOSTON — From an industry that was in “pretty good shape” six months ago, the trucking industry today faces serious issues that must be addressed, American Trucking Associations’ president Bill Graves told delegates to the organization’s annual Management Conference and Exhibition here Oct. 17.
“We were having the best business in years,” Graves said.
Then, he noted, a series of events occurred that put the brakes on the good year.
First, rising oil prices sent the price of diesel to record heights, a fact that was compounded in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita when prices rose well in excess of $3 a gallon.
Truck tonnage, which had been increasing month by month during the early part of the year, has fallen for three straight months.
Finally, there has been a general softening of consumer confidence. In fact, Graves said, it’s the lowest it’s been in years.
“Less consumer spending will translate into less freight for our industry,” he said.
Graves focused on two major issues facing the industry.
“Congress must find a way to limit the negative impact of fuel prices on trucking,” Graves said, adding that the U.S. must increase its investment in oil refinery development and review environmental policies that might limit production...
Trucking isn't quite as sexy a topic, and I don't really have much sympathy for them. If we took the money we spend on trucking and sunk it into beefing up the our rail network, I really think our standard of living would be higher, as it would cost less in the long run to ship needed goods from place to place over inter-city distances.
I don't know what it is but even though gas went down a little, it's still really expensive
I don't know what it is but diesel is $3.09-$3.29 a gallon right now... heating oil must be right around the corner and eating up production.
Typical... they aren't compe ive, so they want Congress to step in and rig the market to make them more compe ive. 'em.
Trucking already is so subsidized it's ridiculous. Ordinary drivers pay road taxes for the damage 18-wheelers do to the highways. A fair and scientific formula for road maintenance would be based upon the fifth power of gross vehicle weight, which is proportional to the force exerted by the vehicle on the pavement. If that were the case, trucks would pay essentially all road taxes.
The same would be true if shipping really were a free market, rather than a mercantile one based upon who has the best lobbyists to gobble up our tax money.
Lobbyists or no lobbyists, trucking will become less compe ive over the next few years. Union Pacific should do well on their government subsidized rail lines. Hey, they have lobbyists, too.
oilco's think nobody understand their business?
Trying to spin and hide their HUMONGOUS 3rd quarter profits.
Everybody understands the oilco's make windfall profits by DOING NOTHING when the price of oil goes up.
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washingtonpost.com
Oil Doesn't Want Focus on Big Profit
Companies Stepping Up Advertising
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 26, 2005; D01
Gigantic oil companies generally do not enjoy the best PR.
Pick your poison: Oil companies have caused tanker spills, proposed drilling into the Arctic wildlife ranges, crafted ties to shady nations and meddled in the affairs of others, and produced products that pollute.
Now, even as high gasoline prices continue to anger motorists and aggravate financial problems at General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the oil companies have begun to report record quarterly profit. Yesterday, British energy giant BP PLC reported $6.5 billion in third-quarter profit, up from $4.9 billion in the same period last year. And tomorrow, analysts expect Exxon Mobil Corp. to show that it earned nearly $9 billion over the past three months -- the largest corporate quarterly profit ever.
Grumbling already has begun on Capitol Hill: Last month, one senator proposed a windfall-profit tax on oil conglomerates, and yesterday, House Republicans warned energy companies against price gouging.
To deflect the damage, the energy industry is relying on an ad campaign that was escalating even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita blitzed Gulf Coast petroleum refineries. The print and television ads are designed to educate consumers and lawmakers with a "we're all in this together" tone.
In the pages of The Washington Post, for example, according to the paper's ad executives, BP has taken out seven large issue ads so far this year, compared with zero through the same time last year. Exxon Mobil has had 19 so far this year, compared with 12 last year. For Chevron Corp., it's 17 ads so far this year, compared with six last year. And the industry's trade group, the American Petroleum Ins ute, has purchased seven ads in The Post so far this year, compared with none last year.
Chevron and Exxon Mobil increased their ad spending in the third quarter of this year at the New York Times, the newspaper company reported in its earnings call last week.
"You still have 100 hours of press time on any oil spill versus a tiny blurb or nothing at all if a company spends hundreds of millions on pollution control," said Lyle Brinker, an analyst for John S. Herold Inc. energy research firm. "Sometimes, they just throw up their hands. The best thing they can do is keep the debate focused on educating the public."
Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Industry, said the ads partially are designed to correct no-longer-true misperceptions about his industry. For instance, he said, even though 90 percent of the Gulf Coast drilling platforms and refineries were hit by either Katrina or Rita, there were no oil spills.
The industry's ads range from simple conservation messages to those that attempt to re-brand the oil companies as something else.
An American Petroleum Ins ute ad implores consumers to turn down thermostats, clean furnace filters, and weatherstrip windows and doors.
Full-page ads from Chevron ominously warn: "It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30."
The most con uously non-oil oil ads come from the former British Petroleum, which removed the oil from its name and became BP. Now, the company advertises itself as "Beyond Petroleum." The company's logo resembles a sun with leaves.
Stumble onto a BP television ad and it is easy to assume it is a commercial for a company that makes solar panels. Or that BP is an environmental organization of some sort.
"Solar is but a tiny, tiny, tiny part of their business," Brinker said. "They make 99.9 percent of their money in the oil business."
But oil companies may have nowhere to hide as their third-quarter earnings roll in this week.
"They should be record earnings," said Jacques Rousseau, an oil analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc. in Arlington.
In the third quarter of 2004, for instance, Exxon Mobil earned $6.2 billion. When the company reports its third-quarter results tomorrow, David Dropsey, an analyst with Thomson First Call research, expects profit of about $8.8 billion.
Chevron made $3.2 billion in last year's third quarter; Dropsey predicts the company will hit about $4.3 billion for this year's third quarter. ConocoPhillips Co. is expecting a $3.5 billion quarterly profit when it reports today, Dropsey said, up from $2 billion last year.
"Yes, our numbers are large, but when you figure the size of the companies, we are at an all-industry average," Cavaney said. "We are half the size of the returns of the financials and pharmaceuticals."
Yesterday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called it "fine" that energy companies are reaping record profit. "However, there have been allegations of price gouging in the wake of the hurricanes. This is unacceptable, and any company who does it will be prosecuted," he said.
Cavaney said industry research showed that most consumers and lawmakers do not fully grasp how the energy industry works and why prices go up and down at the pumps. (He pointed out that average gas prices are back within 10 cents of their pre-Katrina level.)
This led his organization and many of the big oil companies to step up their hearts-and-minds media campaign. This is partially to help educate the consumers, but also to try to dissuade lawmakers from reins uting a windfall-profit tax -- the last one stretched from 1980 to 1987 -- which oil companies fear. They say the tax drives up gasoline prices by reducing crude supply.
Last month, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) introduced a bill that would establish a windfall-profit tax on energy companies that would return some of the companies' earnings to consumers in the form of a rebate, exempting the percentage of profit the companies use for exploration.
Oil price hikes and corporate profit es are caused by supply and demand, Cavaney said. And the annual 5 to 10 percent decrease in the world's oil supply, combined with government resistance to allow drilling in places such as Alaska's wildlife refuge and the emergence of China as a major oil user has tipped the needle to the demand side of the equation, he said. The oil company ads seek to explain the complicated energy industry math to consumers, Cavaney said.
"We started back in the year 2000, trying to warn people that we were in a position that increases in demand were exceeding capacity," but no one listened, Cavaney said. "What we took too much for granted was that people understood our business."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
I have actually talked to financial analysts and accountants at BP during some of their recruiting jaunts to Texas State where I am studying.
They also spoke of refocusing their company over the coming decades towards solar and renewables.
This is not a cynical ploy by some company intent on "distracting the public" while they make profits on oil. Rather it is the long term view of a company that realizes that it is really at heart an energy company. At this time that energy is most profitably produced by drilling and selling oil, yes.
BUT
They, like many in the oil and gas industry have come to realize their long term futures are in renewables. A good example of this was in the Austin American Statesman today. In Texas, an oil and gas company is currently contracted to build some huge offshore... windfarms. Yes, wind farms.
What I see are not cynical attempts at propaganda. I see companies that realize their futures are at stake. The most profit for any company is in being first to market. That market in the future for energy companies will be in renewables. A smart businessperson will realize that, and believe me, these multi-billion dollar companies have some smart businesspeople in them. I have met them and talked to some of them. I like the fact that BP has taken something of a lead in this, and may go to work for them at some point after I get my Masters in Accounting for that very reason.
"I see companies that realize their futures are at stake."
That realization didn't work out too well when US auto companies saw the future as "East Asian auto manufacturers".
I expect the oilco's to be as fore-warned and to be caught as flat-footed as high oil prices push demand to the floor, and push the floor of demand down.
70+% of US oil goes to transportation, so the key is finding a way to power transportation machines without gas/diesel. Importing oil to make (polluting) fertilizer to grow bio-fuels doesn't seem like a winner.
With the US greens starting to embrace nuclear as the least evil of electricity generation alternatives, I expect, NIMBY-ism notwithstanding, that the biggest impact on mid-term electrical future is more nuclear plants (while turning off coal plants), not more wind farms.
When BP spends those $Bs in windfall Repub war profits on researching, and industrializing, alternatives to oil-based transportation, I'll believe their green press campaign. Talk is cheap.
I'm telling you, solar cells have a huge future.
Well, whatever it is ... my CPS bill was down $100 from last month.
Here's LONG background info on the mystery around Saudi reserves/production capacity. Seems the China will be the spoiler, pushing total demand way past capacity. Even if the reserves are down there or are findable, will the investment be made in production capacity to deliver it.
The Repubs refusal to go after Saudis as a country soft-on/fostering terrorism can be explained by the Repubs dependence on the Saudi to pump oil to keep pump prices poltically insignificant. ie, the Repubs have done nothing to reduce the ME countries' oily hands grasping the USA's short and curlies.
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The New York Times
October 27, 2005
Doubts Raised on Saudi Vow for More Oil
By JEFF GERTH
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - Last spring, the White House publicly embraced plans by Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production capacity significantly. But privately, some officials and others advising the government are skeptical about some of those Saudi forecasts.
The United States relies on a few producers to maintain enough spare capacity to keep prices and markets stable, even during war or disaster. As oil prices have climbed over the last few years amid surging demand and tight supplies, the Bush administration has looked to the Persian Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, to pump extra oil.
But doubts about Saudi Arabia's assurances of how much it can expand capacity - and for how long - have been raised in a secret intelligence report and in a separate analysis by a leading government oil adviser, according to a federal government official and the oil expert.
If those skeptical assessments are correct, the administration's hopes of increasing supplies would become still more difficult to fulfill. Washington's expectations about oil production from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have proved overly optimistic, and the White House has failed to heed advice about both those countries from industry and government specialists, according to do ents and interviews.
The challenges facing the Bush administration on energy come as oil companies are set to report record profits resulting from soaring prices for oil and natural gas. Exxon Mobil, the world's largest private oil company, is expected Thursday to announce a quarterly profit exceeding $8.5 billion, more than companies like Intel and Time Warner earn in a full year.
Asked about the profits on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said "the government and the private sector have a role to play" in restoring the vital infrastructure damaged by the hurricanes this year along the Gulf of Mexico and over Florida. Gasoline prices ed after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, straining oil markets already tight because of the uncommonly low levels of spare capacity.
But when it comes to oil supply, American companies are limited: the countries that control most of the world's oil keep out private producers. So whatever the political repercussions from high energy costs, the administration has had little choice but to rely on the promises by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter, that it would continue to be the market's linchpin.
"There's always been this tenet on the American side," said Nawaf Obaid, a consultant to Saudi Arabia on energy security, "that the Saudis knew what they were doing and rightfully so."
But a senior intelligence official, who insisted on remaining anonymous because he was not permitted to speak publicly on the issue, said that the Saudi plans to increase production by nearly 14 percent in the next four years were not enough to meet global demand. Even the Energy Information Administration recently scaled back its expectations of how much more oil the Saudis could pump in 20 years.
To be sure, as Mr. McClellan said Wednesday, there is more to President Bush's energy policy than seeking to ensure surplus capacity. The administration has called for increasing domestic production and refineries, development of alternative and renewable fuels, expanding nuclear energy and, recently, greater conservation. Still, the Persian Gulf countries are seen as crucial in moderating future prices.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, when high gasoline prices were an issue, Mr. Bush pledged to do a better job of influencing Persian Gulf producers to pump more oil.
Early on, the administration was mostly interested in whether the Saudis would produce more oil during the anticipated conflict in Iraq. Long before the war began, Saudi spare capacity - roughly three million barrels a day above the seven million barrels being pumped daily in 2002 - seemed adequate.
Productive capacity depends on the amount of oil in the ground as well as the infrastructure required to drill, process, store and transport the oil. In addition, increasing capacity is very costly and time-consuming.
"The long-term capacity was not considered a problem," said Robert W. Jordan, the American ambassador to Riyadh from 2001 to 2003. The Saudis, he added, "never expressed any concern about the need to expand."
"Nor did we, or at least me, engage them on this topic," he said.
In April 2002, when President Bush met Crown Prince Abdullah, now the Saudi king, the focus was not on oil but on Israeli-Palestinian matters, according to Mr. Jordan. The United States did not press the capacity issue because, even two years later, Saudi officials were publicly expressing confidence that there was no need over the next five years to add capacity.
Going to 12 million or 15 million barrels a day was possible, though, because the country had an estimated 150 billion barrels above the 260 billion in proven reserves, Nansen G. Saleri, a senior Saudi oil executive, said at an oil conference in Washington in February 2004.
Soon, though, rising demand from Asia made the need to invest in new production "a front-burner issue," according to Spencer Abraham, energy secretary in the president's first term. By May 2004, under pressure from the United States and other consumers, the Saudis promised to pump more oil. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, was planning to increase capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009.
Before long, Ali al-Naimi, the oil minister, and Saudi oil executives were saying that the country could add 200 billion barrels - from existing fields and yet-to-be-discovered resources - to its reserves, enabling production of 15 million barrels a day for 50 years or perhaps longer.
Just before meeting with Prince Abdullah in April, President Bush said he wanted "a straight answer" about how much extra oil the Saudis could pump.
At that session in Texas, the prince reaffirmed the previously announced expansion plans. Saudi Arabia's capacity now stands at about 11 million barrels a day. The Saudis pump about 9.5 million barrels, leaving a cushion of about 1.5 million barrels, mostly of heavier grades not very usable in the West. There is virtually no other global spare capacity.
Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, told reporters after the meeting that the Saudi program was "a very good plan because it addresses the underlying issue you have when you talk about price, which is an issue of availability of oil and availability of capacity."
But there are doubts about the Saudi assertions about how much oil they have. Data about reserves is tightly guarded, and the Saudis dismiss skeptics as uninformed.
But they do not dismiss Edward O. Price Jr., the former head of exploration for Saudi Aramco and an adviser to the United States government on Persian Gulf oil during both Iraq wars. He questioned future reliance on Saudi capacity in an article in The New York Times last year and wanted to know from his former colleagues how they reached their estimate of more than 150 billion barrels of extra oil. Twenty years ago, a detailed study by geologists from four large American oil companies then in partnership with Aramco found little in the way of undiscovered oil resources, he said.
Mr. Saleri, who manages Saudi reservoirs, met with Mr. Price in the United States last year. Saudi Aramco officials declined to respond to questions about the meeting. But Mr. Price said in an interview that Mr. Saleri told him that the basis for the higher oil figures was a global study in 2000 by the United States Geological Survey estimating Saudi Arabia's undiscovered resources at 87 billion barrels.
Mr. Price said he responded that the estimates "by the U.S.G.S. had no credibility and far exceeded the detailed studies by the old Aramco team." The Aramco study, unlike the survey estimate, involved detailed field work.
Questions about Saudi Arabia's long-term estimates were also raised last year in a report by the National Intelligence Council, an advisory panel that produces the government's most authoritative intelligence estimates, according to a government official who insisted on not being identified because the report was classified.
In addition to Saudi Arabia, the Bush administration has viewed the United Arab Emirates as a supplier with excess capacity. In 2001, the emirates planned to increase capacity to 3 million barrels a day by 2005 from 2.5 million barrels a day then. But capacity has not grown in four years, which one administration official attributes to a lack of urgency by emirates officials and a lack of high-level attention by American officials.
An energy policy report by Vice President Cheney in May 2001 recommended that the president actively support initiatives in Persian Gulf nations allowing foreign investment that could lead to increased production. The United Arab Emirates was cited as one of the few countries that could increase its oil-production capacity.
A status report on Mr. Cheney's task force, released in January by the Energy Department, said administration officials moved to carry out the recommendation in four countries. The U.A.E. was not among them, however, and the president was not mentioned in the report.
When Mr. Bush spoke after the Iraq war with Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, the emirates' ruler until his death late last year, he discussed security and Iraq, not oil investment issues, according to a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of not being identified because of the sensitive nature of discussions between heads of state. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Since the status report in January, the emirates announced that they would increase capacity to 2.7 million barrels a day by 2006, and long-stalled negotiations with Exxon Mobil to develop an offshore field began moving to completion. But the country's capacity remains at 2.5 million barrels a day, with nothing in reserve, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In Iraq, too, the Bush administration's hopes have been disappointed. The removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 changed Iraq from a pariah into a possible backstop for global oil markets. Soon after the invasion, top administration officials were bullish about Iraq's production: they said it would exceed the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels a day and reach 3 million barrels by the end of 2003 or late 2004.
But a report in July by the Government Accountability Office found that Iraqi production had declined since late 2004 to 2.1 million barrels a day from 2.5 million barrels, despite White House legislative requests for almost $3 billion to restore the oil industry there to its prewar abilities.
An important reason for the decline, the report found, was improper management of the reservoirs. Gary Edson, then a deputy national security adviser, was told two years ago that Iraqi production would drop, not increase, according to an outside report presented to him.
A White House spokesman, Frederick Jones, declined to discuss the report. But, according to Wayne Kelley, a petroleum engineer who wrote the report and discussed it with Mr. Edson in November 2003, the message fell on deaf ears.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
At $9.9B for one qtr, a record for any company, Exxon's profiits still "disappoint" vs predictions.
The Repub-Iraqi-War-As-Oilco-Enrichment-Agenda has delivered just as intended. Too bad about the damage/death done to US military and Iraqi civilians.
Repubs are all about the $$$.
You can be sure which party will get the bulk of the oilco's campaign donations and lobbying efforts.
==================================
washingtonpost.com
Exxon Mobil posts record profit
By Deepa Babington
Reuters
Thursday, October 27, 2005; 12:41 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices.
Record profits for Big Oil at a time when consumers are paying sky-high prices for gasoline have brought calls for a windfall profits tax or other penalties on oil companies.
The companies have been enjoying an unusually rosy environment for months. In the third quarter, oil prices and refining margins rose sharply after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped through the Gulf of Mexico, disrupting energy operations in the region.
While Exxon's quarterly profit was up 75 percent from a year earlier, and revenue rose 32 percent to more than $100 billion, the results fell short of Wall Street forecasts due to production outages caused by the hurricanes and sharply lower profit at the company's chemicals division.
"They were a bit disappointing, but this a temporary phenomenon," said Paul Kuklinski, an analyst with Boston Energy Research/Soleil Securities. "This is largely attributable to hurricane effects."
Exxon shares fell slightly in midday trade.
The world's largest publicly traded oil company said net income jumped to $9.92 billion, or $1.58 a share, from $5.68 billion, or 88 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding a gain of $1.62 billion from restructuring its stake in a Dutch gas transportation business, earnings were $1.32 per share, 7 cents below the average forecast among analysts polled by Reuters Estimates.
The record earnings topped the $9 billion net profit reported on Thursday by Royal Dutch S Plc and were well above the best quarterly performances by Citigroup Inc., the world's largest bank -- $7.2 billion -- and conglomerate General Electric Co. -- $5.6 billion -- according to Reuters Fundamentals.
EXPANSION OF CAPACITY
In addition to calls for a windfall profits tax or other penalties, lawmakers and consumer advocates have been urging oil companies to expand refining capacity and take other steps to help bring down gasoline prices.
U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Thursday that oil firms have a responsibility to boost refining capacity in times of record profits. Marathon Oil said it would do just that, announcing a $2.2 billion expansion of its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery.
"We're already seeing some companies yielding to pressure," said Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit. "But everybody is waiting for the big lady to sing, which is Exxon."
Exxon said it did not see the point of a windfall profits tax.
"Frankly, if you're trying to encourage supply growth, it seems odd to put in place disincentives," Henry Hubble, vice president of investor relations for Exxon, said on a conference call with analysts.
PRODUCTION FALLS
Exxon's oil and gas production fell 4.7 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as outages caused by Katrina and Rita, maintenance activities, and maturing fields more than offset higher production from new fields in West Africa.
Excluding the impact of the hurricanes, divestments and en lement effects, output fell 1 percent.
Still, record crude oil prices -- which touched $70 a barrel in the quarter -- pushed earnings at its exploration and production unit to $5.73 billion, up $1.8 billion from a year earlier.
At its refining and marketing operations, profit rose to $2.13 billion, up $727 million from a year earlier. Stronger refining margins outweighed weak marketing margins and lower petroleum product sales.
Earnings at its chemicals division tumbled to $472 million, down $537 million from a year earlier, due to higher feedstock costs and lower margins.
Exxon's capital expenditures jumped to $4.41 billion from $3.63 billion a year earlier.
Shares of Exxon, the largest of the so-called "super-major" oil companies, were down 10 cents to $56.10 at midday on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares rose more than 10 percent in the third quarter but underperformed the broader Standard & Poor's integrated oil and gas index, which climbed more than 13 percent.
(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz)
© 2005 Reuters
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