[permaculture] Exxon makes record pfofits and loves "scarcity" i.eloves the Peak Oil mythology
Robert Waldrop
bwaldrop at cox.net
Tue Feb 3 09:19:05 EST 2009
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Roberts"
<nicholas at themediasociety.org>
> I am afraid the Peak Oil myth driving the
> Transition movement is really only
> good for corporate profits..
> I am assuming no-one has managed to dent Nathan
> Lewis work on world energy
> futures and the fungible nature of fossil fuels.
> i.e you can make synthetic
> fuel from coal, gas, etc
What myth?
It is physically possible to make liquid fuels
from coal, the Nazis did that during WW II. But
it is a nasty process, and the energy returned on
energy invested is not good. "Coal to liquids" is
one of the many industrial dead ends.
Robert Waldrop, OKC
www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org
> artifical scarcity is a beloved marketing
> strategy i.e. De Beers artifical
> manufacture artificial scarcity in the diamon
> trade
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1205906,00.html
>
>
>
> Exxon shatters profit recordsOil giant makes
> corporate history by booking
> $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300
> a second in 2007.By David
> Ellis<http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/companies/mailto:david.ellis@turner.com>,
> CNNMoney.com staff writer
> February 1 2008: 2:26 PM EST
>
> NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil made
> history on Friday by reporting
> the highest quarterly and annual profits ever
> for a U.S. company, boosted in
> large part by soaring crude prices.
>
> Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil
> company, said fourth-quarter
> net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13
> per share. The company
> earned $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share, in
> the year-ago period.
>
> The profit topped Exxon's previous quarterly
> record of $10.7 billion, set in
> the fourth quarter of 2005, which also was an
> all-time high for a U.S.
> corporation.
>
> "Exxon can put out some amazing numbers and this
> is one of those cases,"
> said Jason Gammel, senior analyst at Macquarie
> Securities in New York.
>
> Exxon also set an annual profit record by
> earning $40.61 billion last year -
> or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007. That
> exceeded its previous record of
> $39.5 billion in 2006.
>
> In the fourth quarter, the company said revenue
> rose 29.5% from a year ago
> to $116.64 billion.
>
> Analysts were looking for the company to report
> quarterly profit of $10.36
> billion on revenue of $114.9 billion, according
> to earnings tracker Thomson
> Financial.
>
> Despite topping Wall Street's estimates, Exxon
> (XOM<http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=XOM&source=story_quote_link>,
> Fortune
> 500<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/snapshots/496.html?source=story_f500_link>)
> shares slipped in afternoon trading.
>
> The company reported strong results in its
> worldwide exploration and
> production, or "upstream," business. Profit rose
> 32% to $8.2 billion during
> the quarter, offsetting some weakness earlier in
> the year.
>
> Income in Exxon's refining, or "downstream,"
> business rose 15.7% during the
> quarter to $2.27 billion.
>
> Exxon attributed its impressive results to
> strong performance across its
> divisions, but a large part of the profit surge
> was underpinned by climbing
> oil prices.
>
> Crude prices skyrocketed nearly 60% last year.
> The surge helped prices break
> through the $100 a barrel mark for the first
> time ever early last month.
> Since crossing that milestone, prices have eased
> to around $90 a barrel.
>
> Natural gas prices also jumped last year, albeit
> marginally. But costs have
> also increased for the oil companies, which is
> why profits haven't risen as
> rapidly as crude prices.
>
> Big oil companies that both pump oil and refine
> crude into gasoline have to
> spend more for crude but are unable to pass on
> all the extra cost to
> consumers, which eats in to gasoline profit
> margins.
>
> The average price for a gallon of regular
> gasoline hit an all-time high of
> $3.23 in May, according to the motorist
> organization AAA. The high prices
> were blamed on strong demand and a series of
> accidents that shut down
> refineries in the U.S. But slack demand for
> gasoline in the latter half of
> last year kept gas prices from rising as
> dramatically as crude prices.
>
> Exxon's record results, which coincide with
> smaller rival Chevron's
> (CVX<http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=CVX&source=story_quote_link>,
> Fortune
> 500<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/snapshots/290.html?source=story_f500_link>)
> profit jump, drew some fire from both government
> officials and consumer
> rights groups, who have argued previously that
> the the oil industry is
> deliberately restricting supply and profiting on
> the back of U.S. motorists.
>
> Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. took a swipe at the
> two firms, calling on
> fellow lawmakers to break the country's
> dependence on foreign oil and
> rollback unnecessary tax incentives for oil
> companies.
>
> Judy Dugan, research director of The Foundation
> for Taxpayer and Consumer
> Rights, urged Congress to initiate some
> oversight into unregulated energy
> trading markets, which have been accused of
> helping to drive up the price of
> oil.
>
> "Exxon is happy to take advantage of these
> prices," said Dugan.
>
> But finding oil has also become more costly. The
> oil boom has led to a surge
> in exploration and drilling activity, which has
> pushed up the price for
> skilled workers and equipment.
>
> Furthermore, new supplies of oil are
> increasingly difficult to find and
> generally tend to be located in harder to
> reach - and hence more expensive -
> places. The new natural gas field discovered
> this week by Brazil's Petrobras
> lies three miles under the ocean.
>
> ExxonMobil representatives also stressed the
> cyclical nature of the business
> and noted that growing global demand for energy
> will require companies to
> heavily invest in future growth. The company
> said it estimates that global
> demand will grow by 30 percent by 2030.
>
> "The challenge for all of us in the industry is
> how to we meet that
> increased demand," said Henry Hubble, vice
> president of investor relations.
>
> Exxon and Chevron aren't the only two oil giants
> to report impressive
> earnings recently. Conoco (COP, Fortune
> 500<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/snapshots/1050.html?source=story_f500_link>),
> the nation's third-largest oil company, trounced
> profit estimates by nearly
> 25% when it reported last week. And Royal Dutch
> Shell PLC, Europe's largest
> oil company, reported a 60% increase in profits
> Thursday.
>
> *-CNNMoney.com staff writer Steve Hargreaves
> contributed to this
> report* [image:
> To top of
> page]<http://cnnmoney.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Exxon+posts+quarterly%2C+annual+profit+records+-+Feb.+1%2C+2008&expire=-1&urlID=26270886&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2008%2F02%2F01%2Fnews%2Fcompanies%2Fexxon_earnings%2F&partnerID=2200#TOP>
>
> --
> Nicholas Roberts
> [im] skype:niccolor
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