The Business Ethics Blog

Many folks in North America suffered through high gas prices during parts of 2005, supposedly mostly due to instability in the oil industry resulting from Hurricane Katrina.

Of course, the year wasn’t bad enough to prevent Exxon Mobil from reaping the biggest profits of any company anywhere ever.
See the Bloomberg story: Exxon Mobil 4th-Qtr Profit Climbs to Record $10.7 Bln

According to Bloomberg, the company actually benefited from the effects of the hurricane:

Revenue rose 20 percent to $99.7 billion as rising demand and hurricanes lifted prices for crude oil, natural gas and gasoline. The average U.S. profit on refining crude into gasoline and other fuels widened to a record of almost $11 per barrel processed, based on futures prices.

In light of this, it seems suitable to post this bit of anti-ExxonMobil satire…“Toast The Earth”. Now, a funny cartoon lampooning a corporation wouldn’t merit much attention on this blog, except these folks have gone a step further and provided a Fact Sheet. So, it’s not mere mud-slinging.

Update (January 31)
Late yesterday, Reuters ran a story about the reaction to Exxon Mobil’s record profits: Record profits spark new backlash against Big Oil