Exxon Mobil Set Record Profit in 2003

DALLAS - Exxon Mobil Corp. saw fourth-quarter earnings jump 63 percent as it benefited from higher prices for crude oil and natural gas.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that it also set a record for earnings in one year, $21.51 billion, nearly double its profit for all of 2002.

In the October-December quarter, Exxon Mobil earned $6.65 billion, or $1.01 per share compared with $4.09 billion, or 60 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding $2.23 billion from settlement of a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service and other one-time gains and losses, Exxon Mobil said it earned operating profit of $4.42 billion, or 68 cents per share, compared with $3.79 billion, or 56 cents per share a year ago.

That easily beat the forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, who had expected earnings of 58 cents per share.

Revenue rose to $65.95 billion from $56.21 billion.

Exxon Mobil shares rose 66 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $41.47 in trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Analysts said they expected Exxon Mobil to have a great fourth quarter because of high oil and gas prices. They said the results were even better than expected partly because Exxon Mobil's chemicals business, long stuck in the doldrums, posted a $400 million increase in profit.

Exxon Mobil stepped up its capital spending, including exploration, in the fourth quarter as part of a long-term strategy to boost production by drilling in West Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere around the world.

Patrick Mulva, the company's director of investor relations, said capital spending in 2004 would remain around $15 billion.