New York - The world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, reported the largest quarterly profit in US history Thursday on the back of record oil prices.
Exxon earned 14.83 billion dollars in the quarter, an increase of 60 per cent on the same quarter of 2007.
Sales increased by 35 per cent to 137.74 billion dollars in the same period, the company reported from its headquarters in Houston in the US state of Texas, far exceeding analysts' forecasts.
Exxon Mobil held the previous quarterly profit record, with 11.7 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2008.
Copper prices fell to about four-year low in international market following fears of low demand in the wake of global financial crisis. According to recently released data by the World Bureau of Metal Statistics, copper prices declined more than 55 per cent in this year. Analysts at Barclays Capital said that adverse is yet to come and next few quarters would see huge decline in demand as compared to current demand level in the market.
Sugar was traded at Rs 65 per quintal higher last week at the commodity exchange and market is expected to remain firm in the coming times due to the fears of low yield.
As prices in the global market continued to decline, vegetable oil imports increased 30 per cent in November compared with the same period a year ago. Total veg oil imports in the country shot up to 555,342 tonnes in November this year as compared to 427,912 tonnes in the corresponding month last year. Of this, edible and non-edible oil comprised 519,032 tonnes and 36,310 tonnes, respectively. Import of RBD palmolein was reported at 137,959 tonnes as compared to 30,014 tonnes in the same month last year. The share of refined oil increased to 27 per cent from 25 per cent in October this year. 
Gold recorded a rise of Rs 405 to touch Rs 12,865 per 10 gm in Mumbai. The price of yellow metal breached the psychological level of Rs 13,000-mark in Kolkata after a gap of 10 days, while it was just of short of Rs 20 from the Rs 13k in Delhi. 
