US oil giant Exxon Mobil today notched a record $45.22 billion net profit in 2008 despite a 33% income decline in the fourth quarter amid plunging crude prices.
It was the biggest annual profit declared by any publicly listed company in the world, coming on the back of crude's triple-digit price for most of the year, rocketing to a record peak above $147a barrel in July.
The Texas-based company shattered its own annual profit record of $40.6 billion recorded in 2007 despite fourth-quarter income declining to $7.82 billion.
The fourth-quarter profit drop was the biggest since 2001 as oil prices collapsed at the end of 2008 amid recession in the US and most of the industrialised world following financial turmoil. Its quarterly profit was equivalent to $1.55 a share compared to analysts expectations of $1.45.
Exxon, the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, said that weaker crude oil prices, higher operating expenses, lower chemical volumes and the impact of hurricanes that hit the US Gulf Coast in the fourth quarter were partly offset by higher downstream margins.
The company also said that it would invest more than $1 billion in three refineries in the US and Europe to increase the supply of cleaner fuel.
