Lee Raymond Earnings Quotations

Petroleum earnings go up and down with the volatility in the openly and globally traded commodities in which we deal. ... History teaches us that punitive measures hastily crafted in reception to short-term market manipulations, will likely have unintended negative consequences including creating disincentives for investment.

Over the last 10 years, Exxon Mobil's cumulative capital and exploration expenditures have exceeded our cumulative annual earnings. So, we keep investing in the future when earnings are high as well as when they are low.

With the improvement in oil prices, second quarter net income increased 18 percent from the first quarter of 1999, in contrast to the seasonal earnings decline that we usually see from the first to the second quarter of each year,

Our earnings in the third quarter reflect the impact of the relatively volatile industry environment on commodity prices and industry margins.

If there's an excise tax, what that means is over the cycle we're going to have less earnings than we would have had, and therefore our ability and our willingness to invest is going to diminish.

The improvement in earnings reflected higher U.S. natural gas realizations and refining margins, both of which were very strong early in the second quarter, but declined significantly as the quarter progressed, ... The decline in these key earnings drivers, along with crude oil prices, has continued into the third quarter.