I know: It's definitely not price gouging (insult away, BTW)

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/exxon-mobil-beats-expectations-profit/20060727081109990035?_ccc=5&cid=842

IRVING, Texas (July 27) - Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday it earned $10.36 billion in the second quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.

The earnings figure was 36 percent above the profit it reported a year ago. High oil prices helped boost its revenue by 12 percent to a level just short of a quarterly record.

Exxon Mobil's report comes a day after another large U.S. oil company, ConocoPhillips, said it earned more than $5 billion in the quarter and at a time when many drivers in the U.S. are paying $3 for a gallon of gas - increasing the likelihood of further political backlash in Washington.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company by market capitalization, said earnings amounted to $1.72 per share in the April-June quarter compared with a profit of $7.64 billion, or $1.20 per share, a year ago.

The results topped Wall Street expectations but came in behind Exxon Mobil's record profit of $10.71 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2005.

 

This will not end well.....


Unless Exxon Mobil drops their prices by 36 percent.

 

Right.

That would merely get them to last year's still-immense profit levels.

 

In all seriousness, someone needs to die.

 

You all don't know dick about finances.

Those companies need to be making those kind of profits. Ever priced yachts, vacation villas and private jets? Those things don't come cheap.

Lay off.

 

That knocks a 3.00 pg price down to 1.92.

That's still not low enough.

 

True, but in a 12-gallon car, we're talking about a savings of nearly $13. And that buys me almost another tank of gas. Or, y'know, food for my 3-year-old son.

 

Good point. It'd save me almost $20 per fill up.

 

I think HejiraHenry may be the only one on this board right now who honestly believes the free marketplace is at work here, without any Enron-like gaming of the system.

 

Most Exxon stations near me are 15-20 cents higher per gallon than the stations near them.
There are no Mobil stations near me, they've all been converted to Lukoil stations.
However Hess (and sometimes BP) seem to have the cheapest brand-name gas near me.

 

What the hell are you talking about? What kind of influence -- say with the government -- does oil companies have? It's all hard work and perseverance and the capitalist system shaking out.

 

That's weird. Maybe down here there is more competition, but I've found Exxon at a lot of places locally to be the lowest price (and Chevron highest).