Profiteering off of the doubling of crude oil prices in the space of just two years—topping $78 a barrel in the summer of 2006—the big three recorded combined windfall profits of over $72 billion.
ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded company, raked in $39.5 billon last year—the largest annual profit recorded in US corporate history. The oil giant generated a staggering average of $108 million in profits a day, or $4.5 million an hour. The total topped the previous record for corporate profit, also set by Exxon Mobil in 2005, of $36.13 billion.
Exxon’s total annual profits amounted to more than the federal government spends on public K-12 education per year and were roughly equivalent to the amount that Congress appropriated to provide health care for some 6 million low-income children over a span of 10 years.
Total revenues for the biggest oil company topped $377 billion last year, an amount greater than the gross national product of countries that include Belgium, Sweden, Turkey and Austria.
