Exxon Mobil 3Q profit drops 68 pct, production up

By CHRIS KAHN AP Energy Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The world's largest publicly traded oil company said Thursday that oil production is bouncing back with crude prices.

A worldwide glut in petroleum supplies may yet cool the latest surge in oil, squeezing refiners and keeping profits in oil patch well below their peak last year or even the past several years.

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported that profits from July to September dropped 68 percent to $4.73 billion, or 98 cents per share. The results were the best of the year so far, but they're less than a third of what Exxon earned in the same period of 2008, when crude prices spiked above $147 a barrel.

In fact, excluding the previous two quarters this year, Exxon has not reported quarterly profits this low in at least the past four years.

The Irving, Texas-based company gets most of its income from oil and gas production, and in the third quarter it increased production by 3 percent to 3.69 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Yet the returns are not as good because crude fetched an average of $50 less per barrel when compared with the year-ago period.

Net income fell in the third quarter across Exxon's various operations.

Its oil refining business posted a loss of $203 million in the United States compared with a profit of $978 million in the same three-month period of 2008. Overall, Exxon's refining, or downstream, operation took a beating with profits falling 89 percent to $325 million compared with the year-ago period.

Exploration and production, or Exxon's upstream business, saw earnings drop 63 percent to $4.01 billion in the third quarter.

Exxon shares fell $1.63, or 2 percent, to $72.21 in morning trading.