Exxon Mobil
Exxon Mobil 2Q profit sets US record, shares fall
By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 53 minutes ago
HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest profit from operations ever by any U.S. corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.
The world's largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
Excluding an after-tax charge of $290 million related to an Exxon Valdez court settlement, earnings amounted to $11.97 billion, or $2.27 per share.
Analysts on average expected Exxon Mobil to earn $2.52 a share on revenue of $144 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial. The estimates typically exclude one-time items.
The record-setting results were largely expected, given that crude prices in the second quarter were nearly double what they were a year ago. Natural gas prices were significantly higher too.
But investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe's Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings to $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon's own record earnings from 2007.
Exxon Mobil shares fell $2.81, or 3.3 percent, to $81.57 in morning trading.
Setting U.S. profit records has become commonplace for Irving-based Exxon Mobil. The $11.68 billion topped its own U.S. record of $11.66 billion, posted in the fourth quarter of last year. Right behind that was the $10.9 billion it reported to start 2008.
Exxon Mobil owns the record for at least the top six most-profitable quarters for a U.S. company, as well as the largest annual profit.
The company, which produces 3 percent of the world's oil, got its biggest boost from its exploration and production arm, where earnings rose 68 percent to $10.01 billion from $5.95 billion a year ago. The main driver was record crude prices, partially offset by lower sales volumes and higher operating costs.
Once again, Exxon Mobil's results revealed a troubling trend at the heart of its business.
Production on an oil-equivalent basis fell 8 percent from a year ago — a significant blow for a company that generates more than two-thirds of its earnings from oil and gas production. That follows an opening quarter of 2008 when the company said overall production fell 5.6 percent from a year ago.
Excluding last year's loss of its Venezuelan assets, a labor strike in Nigeria and lower volumes because of production-sharing contracts, Exxon said production was down about 3 percent in the most-recent quarter.
Like its competitors, Exxon Mobil said it took a beating from lower global refining margins. Earnings from refining and marketing fell 54 percent in the quarter to $1.55 billion.
For the first six months of 2008, Exxon Mobil said it earned $22.57 billion, or $4.25 a share, from $19.54 billion, or $3.45 a share, in the first half of 2007. Revenue rose to $254.9 billion from $185.5 billion.
Death Sentence
Bush: Former Army cook's crimes warrant execution
07/29/08
WASHINGTON - President Bush could have commuted the death sentence of Ronald A. Gray, a former Army cook convicted of multiple rapes and murders.
But Bush decided Monday that Gray's crimes were so repugnant that execution was the only just punishment.
Bush's decision marked the first time in 51 years that a president has affirmed a death sentence for a member of the U.S. military. It was the first time in 46 years that such a decision has even been weighed in the Oval Office.
Gray, 42, was convicted in connection with a spree of four murders and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, N.C., area between April 1986 and January 1987 while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. He has been on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since April 1988.
"While approving a sentence of death for a member of our armed services is a serious and difficult decision for a commander in chief, the president believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
"The president's thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous crimes and their families and all others affected," she said.
Bush's decision, however, is not likely the end of Gray's legal battle. Further litigation is expected and these types of death sentence appeals often take years to resolve. It also remains unclear where Gray would be executed. Military executions are handled by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Members of the U.S. military have been executed throughout history, but just 10 have been executed by presidential approval since 1951, when the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military's modern-day legal system, was enacted into law.
President Kennedy was the last president to stare down this life-or-death decision. On Feb. 12, 1962, Kennedy commuted the death sentence of Jimmie Henderson, a Navy seaman, to confinement for life.
President Eisenhower was the last president to approve a military execution. In 1957, he approved the execution of John Bennett, an Army private convicted of raping and attempting to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl. He was hanged in 1961.
Under current military rules, such executions would be carried out by lethal injection.
Gray was held responsible for the crimes he committed in both the civilian and military justice systems.
Silas DeRoma, who left active duty in 1999, was one of several military attorneys who represented Gray on appeal.
"It's disappointing news, as you can imagine," said DeRoma, who now works as a regulatory attorney in Honolulu for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He said the basis for some of Gray's appeals focused on the prisoner's mental competency and his representation at trial.
In civilian courts in North Carolina, Gray pleaded guilty to two murders and five rapes and was sentenced to three consecutive and five concurrent life terms. He then was tried by general court-martial at the Army's Fort Bragg. There he was convicted in April 1988 and unanimously sentenced to death.
The court-martial panel convicted Gray of:
_Raping and killing Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay of Fayetteville on Dec. 15, 1986. She was shot four times with a .22-caliber pistol that Gray confessed to stealing. She suffered blunt force trauma over much of her body.
_Raping and killing Kimberly Ann Ruggles, a civilian cab driver in Fayetteville. She was bound, gagged and stabbed repeatedly, and had bruises and lacerations on her face. Her body was found on the base.
_Raping, robbing and attempting to kill an army private in her barracks at Fort Bragg on Jan. 3, 1987. She testified against Gray during the court-martial and identified him as her assailant. Gray raped her and stabbed her several times in the neck and side. The victim suffered a laceration of the trachea and a collapsed or punctured lung.
Gray has appealed his case through the Army Court of Criminal Appeals (then known as the U.S. Army Court of Military Review) and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Services. In 2001, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
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