Exxon Mobil, 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.

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.

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