Oil Company | featured news

Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, posted lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on Thursday as its oil and gas output sagged and its chemicals business struggled.

Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company, reported a slightly higher-than-expected quarterly profit as rising oil prices and refining margins made up for a decline in oil and gas production.

"... over two decades, more than 45 people have died, BP has faced three criminal convictions ..."

A big shift is happening in Big Oil: An American giant now ranks behind a Chinese upstart. Exxon Mobil is no longer the world's biggest publicly traded producer of oil. For the first time, that distinction belongs to a 13-year-old Chinese company called PetroChina. The Beijing company was created by the Chinese government to secure more oil for that nation's booming economy.

An attempt to roll back oil company tax breaks was blocked in the Senate, despite a Rose Garden push by President Obama, who said the big five oil companies are doing “just fine” as consumers struggle with painfully high gas prices at the pump.

BP and its chief subcontractors, Halliburton and Transocean, made decisions that increased the chances of a catastrophic blowout, a team of experts said.

Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil -- and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general's report to be released this week.

Though it has resisted the slump better than most oil companies, Exxon’s profit fell 68 percent in the quarter.