On the strength of energy prices that hit all-time highs last year, Exxon Mobil Corp. reported earnings Monday that broke records — that of Exxon and every other corporation — sparking a fresh wave of anger from consumer groups.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company posted fourth-quarter profit of $10.7 billion, equal to more than $116 million per day over the last three months of 2005. For the entire year, Exxon Mobil earned $36.1 billion, eclipsing the high-water mark for U.S. corporate earnings that it set in 2004.


...Exxon Mobil and the American Petroleum Institute have stressed in newspaper ads that oil company profit margins are below those of many other industries, when calculated as a ratio to total sales.

Consumer advocate Slocum scoffed at the comparison, noting that such a measurement is not used by the industry or Wall Street analysts when they weigh oil company performance. Slocum's argument won backing from an unlikely source Monday: Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a consulting firm whose clients are oil companies.

"It makes me mad. It's duplicitous," Simmons said of the effort to belittle profits by using a sales ratio. "They're creating a lot more political enemies by doing it."