Do you buy this? The WSJ reports:
The chiefs of five major oil companies defended the industry’s huge profits Wednesday at a Senate hearing where lawmakers said they should explain prices and assure people they aren’t being gouged.
There is a “growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage,” Sen. Pete Domenici (R., N.M.), head of the Senate Energy and Resources Committee, said as the hearing opened in a packed Senate committee room. “The oil companies owe the country an explanation,” he said.
Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., said he recognizes that high gasoline prices “have put a strain on Americans’ household budgets” but he defended his companies huge profits, saying petroleum earnings “go up and down” from year to year. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest non-state-owned oil company, earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter.
COMPANY- PROFIT- REVENUE
BP $6.46 billion, +34% $97.73 billion, +46%
Chevron $3.59 billion, +12% $54.46 billion, +34%
ConocoPhillips $3.8 billion, +89% $49.7 billion, +43%
Exxon Mobil $9.92 billion, +75% $100.72 billion, +32%
Royal Dutch Shell $9.03 billion, +68% $76.44 billion, +8%
Smells like Enron to me. Maybe we need a 10% environmental tax and fight global warming, which of course doesn’t exist.