Black Gold
Oct 26th, 2005 at 5:45 am by Susie
Put a bunch of oilmen in the White House and surprise, surprise:
Even for Big Oil, the numbers have never been as big as this.
When major U.S. energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. announce their third-quarter earnings in the next few days, the results are certain to be staggering.
Pumped up by soaring oil, natural gas and gasoline prices in August and September, Exxon Mobil alone is expected to report quarterly profit of about $8.7 billion. That would be more than such titans as Coca-Cola Co., Intel Corp. and Time Warner Inc. earn in an entire year.
For the energy companies, the record results amount to an embarrassment of riches — an invitation for attack by foes and even some traditional allies.
“The question increasingly is going to be, what is the industry going to do with this money?” said Amy Jaffe, head of the James A. Baker Institute Energy Forum at Rice University in Houston.
Gee, I don’t know. Give some of it back, maybe?
Suppose they use the money to form a private army to invade Iran?
And Venezuela.