Exxon Mobil Corp. posted its weakest quarterly profit in more than a decade amid tumbling energy prices that have already cost the world’s biggest non-state oil explorer its sterling credit rating.
BLOOMBERG.COM

First-quarter net income fell to $1.81 billion, or 43 cents a share, from $4.94 billion, or $1.17, a year earlier, Exxon said in a statement on Friday. The per-share result was 15 cents above the 28-cent average estimate of 19 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. It was Exxon’s sixth straight drop in quarterly earnings, the longest losing streak since 2001-2002. Crashing crude and natural gas prices have compounded the fall-out from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson’s wrong-way bets on shale gas and the Russian Arctic. Cash conservation measures including drastic cost cuts and halting share buybacks weren’t enough to prevent Standard & Poor’s from revoking Exxon’s AAA credit rating for the first since the Great Depression earlier this week.

Read more>