... Shell reported a 21 percent rise in its fourth-quarter earnings, to $5.28 billion. That was mostly a result of a 4.1 percent increase in daily production of oil, to 3.65 million barrels, in the quarter. The company also continued to profit from its superior marketing and refining ability outside the United States.
Shell’s income in 2006 was $25.44 billion, up from $25.3 billion in 2005.
Shell predicted oil and gas production growth of 1 percent to 2 percent annually through 2010, and slightly more after that.
Exxon reported profit of $10.25 billion, or $1.76 a share, in the fourth quarter. That represented a decline of 4.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005, when energy prices soared after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Shares of Exxon Mobil rose 98 cents, or 1.32 percent, to $75.08, while American depository receipts of Shell rose $1.23, or 1.80 percent, to $69.48.
Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Hess and several other oil companies have reported drops in quarterly profits in recent days, but those results are in comparison to record or near-record in the quarters a year earlier...
So how is this windfall used (via Lambert)?
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)...
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees...
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.
The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading authority on climate change and its latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."
Apparently the AEI/ Exxon was able to buy about 10% of the probability (the chances global warming isn't caused by humans) from the participants.
Unless, of course the reality is much worse.
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