Exxon Mobil tops Fortune 500 list
NEW YORK — Exxon Mobil, thanks to rising oil prices, has bumped Wal-Mart from first place among the Fortune 500 top revenue-generating U.S. companies in Fortune Magazine’s annual list that contains three Louisiana-based companies.
On the list are CenturyLink, of Monroe, ranked 171, with $15.4 billion in revenue; Entergy Corp., of New Orleans, ranked 239, at $11.2 billion; and Baton Rouge’s The Shaw Group Inc., ranked 412, at $5.9 billion.
Oil producers saw some of the biggest revenue increases as a rebellion in Libya and high demand worldwide pushed oil prices higher.
The price of benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil soared 19 percent.
Brent crude, which helps set the price of foreign oil varieties, surged 38 percent between 2010 and 2011.
Revenue rose for Exxon Mobil Corp., the Irving, Texas-based company with major refinery and chemical operations in Baton Rouge, even though the company struggled with lower production and high refining costs. It earned $41 billion last year on revenue of $486 billion.
Now at No. 2, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported 4 percent lower earnings in its latest fiscal year: net income of $15.7 billion on revenue of $446.95 billion. Higher expenses squeezed profits as the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant also looked for ways to lower prices.
Two other petroleum companies — Chevron and ConocoPhillips — ranked next behind Wal-Mart.
Rounding out the top 10 were automaker General Motors Co.; industrial and banking giant General Electric Co.; Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.; mortgage provider Fannie Mae; Ford Motor Co.; and technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co.
Hewlett-Packard is new to Fortune’s top 10 this year, knocking out Bank of America, which fell to No. 13.
Bank of America’s revenue has been hit on several fronts by a combination of a weak economy and new regulations that cut how much the bank could collect in credit card and checking account fees.
Bank of America earned $1.4 billion last year on revenue of $94.4 billion.