by Noreen Nielsen
Today, oil giant ExxonMobil announced their 2011 third-quarter earnings, reporting a whopping $10.3 billion in profits, an increase of 41 percent from the same period last year. Overall, Exxon has earned over $31 billion in profits in the first nine months of the year. Not surprisingly, ExxonMobil is also one of the most politically engaged of the top five oil companies. A few key facts:
- Exxon is the top oil and gas contributor in 2011, giving over $569,714 in campaign contributions already this year, with 91 percent of the contributions going to Republicans.
- Exxon has spent nearly $7 million on lobbying Congress this year
- Exxon pays a lower effective tax rate than the average American. In the years spanning 2008 to 2010, Exxon paid an effective rate of 17.6 percent, nearly 16 percent below the average individual federal tax rate.
- ExxonMobil spent $5.7 billion—more than half of its first-quarter profit—to buy 69 million shares of stock in order to “reduce shares outstanding.”
- In the second-quarter 2011, ExxonMobil spent $5.5 billion repurchasing its stock – more than half of its profits.
- ExxonMobil is sitting on $8 billion in cash on hand. Added together, the Big Five oil companies — BP, Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell — are sitting on cash resources of $59 billion and made nearly $1 trillion in profits over the past decade
- Despite ranking in the top of the Fortune 500 list of company profits, ExxonMobil, along with other oil companies, continues to receive billions of dollars in tax breaks paid for by taxpayers.
- ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson ranked in as one of the highest paid CEOs in 2010, earning over $21 million in direct compensation.
Sourcehttp://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/10/27/354999/exxonmobil-profits-jump-by-41-to-10-3-billion/