Exxon's Quitting

According to a story on Reuters.com, ExxonMobil Corp is getting out of the retail gas business. Of the 12,000 Exxon-branded service stations around the country, only about 2,000 are currently owned by ExxonMobil Corp. Over the next few years, they plan to sell off the remainder, though the stations will retain the Exxon or Mobil branding. The article mentions that owners of service stations are struggling to turn profits as they cannot pass on the high cost of gasoline to consumers.

In other news, ExxonMobil posted $40.016 billion in profits last year.[i]

I got to thinking about 40 billion dollars in relation to the obscenely high dollar amounts thrown around these days. Part of me thought it isn’t actually that much. Then I decided to see what can be done with 40 billion bucks.

Option 1

40 billion dollars can pay for 220,113 4-year Penn educations (including room and board)[ii] with enough money left over to buy a Mercedes C300[iii]. That’s enough free rides to Penn for every person in Philadelphia between the ages of 17 and 26[iv]. And a Mercedes. Take away five of those educations, and I could afford fuel [at current costs per gallon ($4.00), the EPA’s estimate of average yearly miles driven and the C300’s fuel economy] for 100 years[v].

Option 2

If cars and education aren't your game, you could use 40 billion dollars to buy 20 Space Shuttle Endeavours.[vi]

Interlude

ExxonMobil’s 40.601 billion dollar profit in 2007 is greater than the gross domestic product of 52% of the world’s countries according to a list by the International Monetary Fund. These countries are:

Latvia Bolivia Cameroon Luxembourg Uruguay Cyprus Panama Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Honduras Nepal Uganda Estonia Jordan Bosnia and Herzegovina Paraguay Turkmenistan Cambodia Botswana Bahrain Trinidad and Tobago Malta Jamaica Senegal Georgia Gabon Afghanistan Brunei Albania Democratic Republic of the Congo Madagascar Republic of Macedonia Burkina Faso Armenia Mozambique Zambia Chad Nicaragua Equatorial Guinea Mauritius Mali Republic of the Congo Laos Iceland Benin Papua New Guinea Tajikistan Haiti Namibia Guinea Malawi Kyrgyzstan Moldova Niger Rwanda Mongolia The Bahamas Mauritania Swaziland Barbados Togo Suriname Sierra Leone Fiji Eritrea Bhutan Central African Republic Lesotho Guyana Burundi East Timor Belize Zimbabwe The Gambia Saint Lucia Djibouti Cape Verde Maldives Antigua and Barbuda Seychelles Liberia Grenada Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Solomon Islands Vanuatu Guinea-Bissau Saint Kitts and Nevis Comoros Dominica Tonga Kiribati Myanmar São Tomé and Príncipe[vii]

Option 3

With $40 billion, you could buy Isla San Pedro—a 16,000 acre island off the coast of Chile[viii]— and furnish it with an equivalent to the most expensive estate in the United States (pool, fingerprint scanner-equipped vault and outdoor air conditioning system included)[ix]. For transportation, you could buy a rare Ferrari Enzo[x] as well as your own Airbus 380.[xi] Of course, you’d need an airport equivalent to the largest international airport in the US to go along with your Airbus[xii] and a baseball stadium equivalent to New Yankee Stadium[xiii] for recreational purposes. After buying all that, you would still have enough money remaining to provide rent for every homeless person in the United States at the current average rate for five and a half years.[xiv] [xv]

What did ExxonMobil do with its 40.6 billion dollar profit last year? Tune in next week for that discussion.

The original article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1238193020080612?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

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Sources:

[i]http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1238193020080612?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

[ii] http://www.upenn.edu/about/faq.php

[iii] http://autos.yahoo.com/mercedes_benz_c_class_c300_sport_sedan-specs/

[iv] http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=16000US4260000&-qr_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_DP5&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_sse=on

[v] http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05004.htm

[vi] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html#1

[vii] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?

[viii] $12 million, http://www.privateislandsonline.com/isla-san-pedro-chile.htm

[ix] $50 million, ,http://www.forbes.com/2005/08/11/cx_sc_0812homeslide.html?thisSpeed=90000

[x] $670,000; http://www.supercars.net/cars/1934.html

[xi] $300 million, http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/06/jets-private-travel-forbeslife_07billionaires_cz_ls_0308jets.html

[xii] $4.8 billion, http://www.colorado.edu/libraries/govpubs/dia.htm

[xiii] $1.3 billion, http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/nyybpk.htm

[xiv] http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=486753

[xv] http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/305/homeless-map.html