How is Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) doing right now?

CENTRAL, Hong Kong - April 19, 2022 - PRLog -- Regular petrol costs an average of $3.42 a gallon at the pump. Oil prices have risen to reach triple-digit levels after plunging more than seven years ago. XOM has gone from being a pariah and being thrown out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to once again being one of the most valuable stocks on the market today.

It was naive back then to believe XOM's greatest days were behind it and it's probably just as naive now to believe that the present good times will last forever. Does it make the oil giant the finest oil stock to purchase today? It was evident at the time that the oil giant was a wonderful buy when it was at its lowest point.

XOM being the largest oil firm in the United States, just posted fourth-quarter earnings of $8.9 billion, the highest since 2015. As global businesses shut down due to the pandemic, the pricing of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate's (WTI) oil briefly traded at negative prices for the first time ever in 2020, while Brent Crude fell to below $9 a barrel. However, by July, prices had returned to roughly $40 a barrel, where they remained for the remainder of the year, until taking off again last year. They are currently trading at well over $92 per barrel.

This quarter, XOM's upstream oil and gas production divisions earned $6.1 billion in operating profit, the biggest in nearly two years. This is motivating it to increase output on its own, both in the Permian Basin in the United States and off the coast of Guyana, where it's installing a new vessel to increase capacity to over 340,000 barrels per day. By the end of 2025, XOM forecasts Guyana's capacity to reach 800,000 barrels. Oil prices will continue high as long as OPEC, or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, refuses to increase supply and instead maintains its current 400,000 barrel per day rate. OPEC's oil accounts for over 60% of all oil traded internationally.

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