Exxon Mobil quarterly profit beats expectations

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil producer, posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday helped by rising crude prices and lower costs.

The results reflected the slow and steady improvement in the global oil and gas industry as commodity prices inch higher after a two-year rout. The quarterly report was Exxon's first under chief executive Darren Woods. Rex Tillerson, the former CEO, has been nominated by US president Donald Trump to be secretary of state and is awaiting confirmation.

Exxon took a $2 billion charge to write down the value of Rocky Mountain natural gas assets, a rare move for a company that typically eschews such accounting methodologies.

Fourth-quarter earnings fell to $1.68 billion, or 41 cents per share, from $2.78 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding the $2 billion writedown, Exxon earned 90 cents per share. By that measure, analysts expected 70 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Production fell 3 per cent to 4.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.