Big Oil

With energy prices high, Big Oil rules atop the Fortune 500, helping to put Texas just a hair behind California as home to the highest-revenue corporations -- 52 firms, compared with the Golden State's 53. The magazine's latest list of mega-enterprises, released Monday, showed Exxon Mobil in the Dallas suburb of Irving edging out Wal-Mart Stores for the top spot, with 2011 revenue of $453 billion, compared with $447 billion at the Arkansas-based...

With energy prices high, Big Oil rules atop the Fortune 500, helping to put Texas just a hair behind California as home to the highest-revenue corporations -- 52 firms, compared with the Golden State's 53. The magazine's latest list of mega-enterprises, released Monday, showed Exxon Mobil in the Dallas suburb of Irving edging out Wal-Mart Stores for the top spot, with 2011 revenue of $453 billion, compared with $447 billion at the Arkansas-based...

Analysts are expecting a bonanza when Exxon Mobil Corp. announces its fourth-quarter earnings on Monday; the company's stock has jumped by nearly 20% during the last year, and in the first three quarters of 2010, its profit was $21.2 billion ? not a bad haul during a worldwide recession. Other oil companies have had similar success, thanks to growing demand in India and China. Yet U.S. taxpayers subsidize this industry to the tune of $4 billion a year. This kind of largesse toward a hugely profitable business seems bizarre, especially at a time when the federal deficit is reaching alarming proportions, yet efforts to end the tax deductions and credits for companies that don't need them have gone nowhere.

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- Just before President Obama gave his scathing critique of the Republican Party on Tuesday, Mitt Romney sought to blunt the impact by accusing him of failing to take responsibility for the rise in gasoline prices. Campaigning at a fast-food restaurant in this Milwaukee suburb on the day of Wisconsin's Republican presidential primary, Romney criticized a television ad that Obama's reelection campaign started airing this week in six White House battleground states.

Afew years ago, when SUVs still ruled American roads and gasoline prices were skyrocketing, consumers and politicians howled that oil companies were guilty of price-gouging because they refused to increase refinery capacity; the companies responded that it would be crazy to build more refineries to meet a spike in demand that was probably temporary. Now the other shoe has dropped: Demand has fallen through the floor, and oil companies are shutting down refineries as a result. And once again, consumer groups are accusing them of price-gouging.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. reaped lucrative profits in 2011 -- and the energy company reduced its new chief executive's compensation. Stephen I. Chazen, who took over the chief executive job in May from Ray R. Irani, received a compensation package worth $31.7 million last year compared with the $38.1 million in 2010 when he was president, the Westwood energy company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. After years of shareholder criticism about how much Occidental paid its top officers, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company decided in 2010 to change how it determined executives' payout to make it more difficult to receive maximum compensation.

Upset about high gasoline prices? So are the folks in Congress -- they just have a different way of showing it. As Time staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Christi Parsons reported Thursday: “The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing 'just fine' while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices.”...

Hey, for the health of our country, I'll take Big Oil over Big Entertainment any day. BILL HAYDEN Santa Maria

GOP's love of Big Oil Re "GOP's Barton defends BP, at party's peril," June 18 Outrageous is too mild a term to characterize Rep. Joe L. Barton's (R-Tex.) criticism of President Obama's negotiation with BP to provide a $20-billion gulf relief fund. In referring to this compensation (without a cap) for the victims of the oil giant's culpability that resulted in the death of 11 individuals and the most devastating environmental disaster in our nation's history as a "shakedown," he has revealed the way Republicans view the president.

WHO'S AFRAID of Big Oil? Apparently, California's elected officials. Gasoline prices are stuck well above last year's record highs and about 50 cents above the national average. Yet state politicians are not saying or doing a thing, except for raking in political cash from the oil companies and flying around the world on their dime. Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once claimed that he was so rich he did not need anyone else's money -- and who isn't running for another office.

WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing "just fine" while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices. The measure to kill the industry tax preferences failed on a 51-47 procedural vote Thursday. It needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster that was supported by some Democrats from oil-rich states.

Upset about high gasoline prices? So are the folks in Congress -- they just have a different way of showing it. As Time staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Christi Parsons reported Thursday: “The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama's argument that the five big oil companies were doing 'just fine' while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices.”...

In an unusual but calculated political move, Senate Republicans declined to block a Democratic bill that would repeal tax breaks for oil companies --  choosing instead to launch a floor debate on the legislation as a way to showcase the Keystone XL pipeline and other GOP proposals aimed at curbing sky-high gas prices. Republican-led opposition will almost certainly defeat the bill on final passage later this week. But by allowing debate, the GOP hopes to harness voter angst over prices at the pump as a political weapon against President Obama's energy policies.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. reaped lucrative profits in 2011 -- and the energy company reduced its new chief executive's compensation. Stephen I. Chazen, who took over the chief executive job in May from Ray R. Irani, received a compensation package worth $31.7 million last year compared with the $38.1 million in 2010 when he was president, the Westwood energy company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. After years of shareholder criticism about how much Occidental paid its top officers, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company decided in 2010 to change how it determined executives' payout to make it more difficult to receive maximum compensation.

A Utah man lionized by environmentalists for crashing a 2008 government auction of energy leases near two national parks was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000 on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Dee Benson in Salt Lake City ordered Tim DeChristopher taken into custody immediately. "I'm not saying there isn't a place for civil disobedience," Benson said. "But it can't be the order of the day. " In a roughly 35-minute address to the court, DeChristopher, 29, said his actions were necessary to highlight the threat that climate change poses to the planet.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic effort to scale back oil industry tax breaks, underscoring the difficulty of getting Congress to agree to any significant measures aimed at bringing down gas prices. All but two Republicans — along with three Democrats — voted against bringing the repeal measure up for debate, even though the $2 billion a year in additional tax revenue from five major oil companies would have been steered into reducing the federal budget deficit, a Republican priority.

Fairfax, Va.-based Mobil, the No. 2 oil company, said its profit fell 2%. "Third-quarter results were disappointing due to unfavorable market conditions in many of the businesses where we have a substantial presence," Chairman Lucio A. Noto said, adding that the company was hurt by unexpected refinery outages. Mobil earned $769 million, or $1.92 per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compares with $786 million, or $1.95, earned in the 1995 quarter.

Texaco Inc. and Diamond Shamrock Inc. joined the list of big oil companies that recorded large fourth-quarter earnings increases, mostly because of higher energy prices resulting from the Persian Gulf conflict. But Ashland Oil Inc. reported a quarterly loss, attributing results to the high price its refineries had to pay for oil. Texaco said Wednesday that fourth-quarter earnings rose 35% to $388 million, compared to $287 million for the same period in 1989.

The White House is seizing on House Speaker John Boehner's surprising comments that lawmakers ought to "take a look at" eliminating some subsidies for oil and gas companies. In a letter fired off to congressional leaders on Tuesday, Obama said he was "heartened" by Boehner's remarks, which came in an ABC News interview and seemed to be a concession to Democrats who have long sought to abandon the subsidies. "Our political system has for too long avoided and ignored this important step, and I hope we can get together in a bipartisan manner to get this done," the president wrote in a letter circulated to the media.