uscitizen
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The high cost of oil is hurting ... oil companies?
Rising cost of crude isn’t being reflected in products they refine from it
Updated: 4:09 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2007
NEW YORK - Drivers aren’t the only ones being squeezed by record oil prices. A surprising casualty of the escalating cost of crude and sagging pump prices turns out to be the oil industry itself.
Even as oil futures set a new record north of $84 a barrel last week, a number of refiners warned that their third-quarter profits won’t be as robust as once expected.
That’s not to say they are destitute. Profits at the nation’s three largest oil companies — Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips — are forecast to drop 8.8 percent to $17.7 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with earnings of $19.4 billion in the same period last year, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
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Gasoline prices have been held down in part by rising supplies of ethanol, which is blended with gas at many stations and has been coming down in price in recent weeks. Ethanol production jumped 34 percent to 13.1 million barrels a month in July, the latest month for which data is available, from July 2006, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21295390
Rising cost of crude isn’t being reflected in products they refine from it
Updated: 4:09 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2007
NEW YORK - Drivers aren’t the only ones being squeezed by record oil prices. A surprising casualty of the escalating cost of crude and sagging pump prices turns out to be the oil industry itself.
Even as oil futures set a new record north of $84 a barrel last week, a number of refiners warned that their third-quarter profits won’t be as robust as once expected.
That’s not to say they are destitute. Profits at the nation’s three largest oil companies — Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips — are forecast to drop 8.8 percent to $17.7 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with earnings of $19.4 billion in the same period last year, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
~
Gasoline prices have been held down in part by rising supplies of ethanol, which is blended with gas at many stations and has been coming down in price in recent weeks. Ethanol production jumped 34 percent to 13.1 million barrels a month in July, the latest month for which data is available, from July 2006, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21295390