ExxonMobil’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2011 estimated results came out today. Our fourth-quarter 2011 earnings were $9.4 billion, and our global earnings total for the year was $41 billion.

As I said yesterday, some in Washington will try to make political capital out of oil industry earnings and will use this opportunity to call for new energy taxes.

So I thought I would mention some interesting facts:

ExxonMobil’s earnings come from around the world.

• ExxonMobil earns far more money from its operations in more than 100 countries around the world than it does from U.S. sales at the pump.
• Less than 6 percent of ExxonMobil’s earnings in 2011 were from refining and selling gasoline and other products in the United States.
• More than three quarters of ExxonMobil’s 2011 operating earnings came from outside the United States and were distributed to millions of people in the United States who are shareholders or whose pension or retirement plans hold ExxonMobil shares.
• During the fourth quarter of 2011, ExxonMobil earned about one-third of a cent for every gallon of gasoline and other products we refined and sold in the United States. Compare that to the 30 to 60 cents per gallon collected by the federal and state governments in gasoline taxes.

ExxonMobil is one of the largest taxpayers in the United States.

• In 2011, ExxonMobil had tax expenses in the United States of more than $1 billion a month – every month.
• Our total 2011 U.S. tax expenses were $12.3 billion, which included:
  • $3.6 billion in U.S. income taxes
  • $5.6 billion in sales-based taxes
  • $3.1 billion in other taxes, such as property and excise taxes.
• In 2011, our $12.3 billion in tax expenses in the United States exceeded our $9.6 billion of earnings in the United States.
• Over the past five years, ExxonMobil’s total U.S. tax expense was $57 billion, which is $18 billion more than the company earned in the United States during the same period.
• Despite these facts, critics continually try to raise the industry’s taxes by calling for the removal of “subsidies” for oil companies. What they call “subsidies” are actually standard provisions in the tax code available to many U.S. producers and manufacturers, including oil and gas companies. I’ve talked at length about the fallacy of the “subsidy” claimsand their negative consequences – you can read more in the following blog posts:
  • Short-sighted tax solutions
  • Higher taxes on oil companies won’t create jobs
  • New York Times misses the big picture on oil and gas taxes

ExxonMobil’s earnings are in line with the industry average.

• In 2011, ExxonMobil earned about 8.5 cents for every dollar of global revenue.
• That’s less than half of the earnings per dollar of sales made by companies selling smart phones, computers, pharmaceuticals, beverages and tobacco, just to name a few examples.
• ExxonMobil’s earnings, and those of the U.S. oil and gas industry, are generally in line with the average earnings of all U.S. industries.

ExxonMobil’s earnings go to shareholders.

• In 2011, ExxonMobil distributed more than $29 billion to shareholders through dividends and share purchases to reduce the number of shares outstanding.
• More than 85 percent of ExxonMobil’s shareholders live in the United States.
• Chances are that most Americans are benefiting in some direct or indirect way from ExxonMobil’s success even if they don’t own our stock outright.
• Public sector and teachers retirement funds hold ExxonMobil stocks in some of the biggest states in the country – New York, California, Texas, Ohio, Colorado, Alabama, Tennessee, Alaska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Utah.
• Many more retirement funds, 401-Ks and IRAs hold shares in ExxonMobil and other major publicly traded oil companies – including those for government workers and members of Congress.

ExxonMobil invests in new energy supplies.

• ExxonMobil invested a record $36.8 billion to find and produce new supplies of oil and natural gas in 2011.
• ExxonMobil invested more than $11.5 billion in the United States in 2011 to find and develop new energy supplies.
• Over the next five years, ExxonMobil plans to invest between $165 billion and $180 billion on new energy supplies around the world.