A bruising pandemic and an activist-led board makeover later, Exxon Mobil Corp. is back. Well, almost.
The largest surviving Standard Oil descendant reported on Tuesday that it generated $23 billion in profit in 2021, more than reversing its $22 billion loss from 2020. It isn’t surprising that oil majors would be doing better: Oil prices, which briefly went negative in 2020, rebounded to average more than $70 a barrel in 2021. Even then, Exxon surprised Wall Street with the size of its recovery. It generated $48 billion in cash flow from operating activities, the highest since 2012, when global oil prices averaged more than $100 a barrel. That number is also about $4 billion more than what analysts polled by Visible Alpha expected.
