According to a report by Associated Press (and many other sources) Exxon Mobile posted records profits for the year. Here’s a segment:

Oil giant Exxon Mobil topped its own record for the biggest annual profit by a U.S. company last year, racking up earnings that amounted to $4.5 million (€3.5 million) an hour for the world’s largest publicly traded oil company.

It reported the record net income — $39.5 billion (€30.3 billion) — despite a 4 percent drop in earnings in the final three months of 2006, as prices for oil and natural gas fell from extraordinary levels earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, Exxon is still asking courts to reconsider the already lowered punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill disaster. Here’s a piece from that story, also AP:

Exxon estimates it has paid $3 billion in cleanup costs, government settlements, fines and compensation. But it still has not paid an unresolved punitive damage judgment, originally set for $5 billion by a federal jury in 1994.

The case has since bounced between the federal court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In December, the appeals court ruled that the oil giant must pay $2.5 billion to compensate thousands of fishermen and others affected by the spill.

Earlier this month, Exxon asked the court to reconsider its decision.